


Take Heart

by Selador



Series: the villain of the story [1]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Anal Sex, Ardyn's a Good Guy in This, Blow Jobs, But It's All About Prompto Really, Cuddling & Snuggling, Daemonic Ardyn, Everybody Loves Prompto, Fluff, Good Ardyn, Human Experimentation, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Major canon divergence, Men Talking About Their Feelings, Non Graphic Vomiting, Porn with Feelings, Prompto is My Favorite Character, Size Difference, Size Kink, Trauma, Worldbuilding, dude in distress
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-18
Updated: 2017-04-25
Packaged: 2018-10-07 08:44:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 31,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10356594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Selador/pseuds/Selador
Summary: Prompto almost dies but is rescued by a daemon, of all things.





	1. The Cave

**Author's Note:**

> This began with the question, "what if ardyn made sense as a character and wasn't just 80% spite?" and spiraled out of control. And focuses instead on Prompto. 
> 
> This story arc is complete (and Ardyn and what happened to him will feature more strongly in the second part). There's more to this universe that I have planned for probably a series, but this specific story arc is complete. I'll post a new chapter every few days so I can edit, but they will all be up!

Prompto is going to die.

He’s going to die in this dark, damp cave, torn up by the shiny, sharp teeth of the daemon that’s holding him by his broken arm. Up a sheer cliff face, he can hear Noctis screaming his name, nearly drowning out Ignis’ and Gladio’s shouts, and he thinks, _I’m going to die here_. _I’m going to die here, and that’s the last I’ll hear of my friends. And this is the last they’ll hear of me_. Distantly, Prompto thinks he might be screaming too.

The daemon throws him and pins him to the ground, and it knocks the air out of Prompto. He’s stopped screaming. His friends haven’t stopped, but they’re quieter. _Farther away_ , he thinks. _They must be screaming at the top of their lungs_.

Prompto is going to die, and he’s not ready, and he thinks, _I’m so sorry Noct_ —as he stares up at the big mouth and glistening teeth above him right before they sink deep into his shoulder and he screams and screams and _I’m going to die I’m going to die I’m going to die oh god I’m going to die please I’m going to die_ — 

The pain sharpens but the weight on top of him vanishes, and Prompto is left in a pool of sticky warm wet and his shoulder is killing him but—but the daemon is gone?

There’s a growl and snarl to his right and despite the pain, Prompto opens his eyes and turns his head enough to see—

To see—

Prompto sees the daemon that had just been about to make a meal of him on the ground besides him. He sees another daemon on top of it, tearing it open from the neck, shoving its claws down into its chest, and pulling out its heart—

He passes out.

(He can’t hear his friends’ screaming anymore.)

...

To no one’s greater surprise than Prompto’s, he wakes up.

Not only does he wake up, he wakes up warm. Comfortable. Dry. The ground beneath him is soft in a way unlike the bedrolls they’ve had to make do with on their mission, but it doesn’t feel like a bed. It feels like… fur?

All at once, Prompto becomes aware of several things that remove the warmth straight from his bones. His head is resting on something that feels undeniably like a leg, and there is a careful and cold hand softly stroking his hair.  

 _Whose fingers are touching my hair_?

His eyes snap open. Above him, the ghastly face of the daemon that tore open the other. Prompto stares, terrified, into the glowing red eyes focused on him. The hand petting him pauses, resting on the crown of his head.

Prompto doesn’t know what to do, but it certainly isn’t jolting up out of fear in a desperate bid to escape ( _to where? where could he even go?_ ) only for his various injuries—he’d broken his left leg at some point and hadn’t even noticed—to make him seize, cry out, and fall into the arms of a daemon. He reaches for a gun from Noct’s Arsenal, to at least go out shooting, but—nothing. He reaches out to nothing.

He’s completely unarmed. Helpless.

His eyes burn with tears and wet his face. He doesn’t know why he’s still alive. Daemons tear their prey apart quickly, if messily, which is about the only good thing about them. But there were always rumors of daemons that still live from ages ago that have become… smarter with age. But those were just tales. Prompto never heard of them actually existing.

“Oh, gods,” Prompto murmurs, squeezing his eyes shut as the daemon begins to move him. Hands, larger than they should be on a human, grip him by his uninjured shoulder and his hip, and they pull him back down onto—onto the soft furs. The daemon props Prompto up, settles behind him, and pulls Prompto down to… to rest his head on the daemon’s lap.

Prompto’s confused, but he keeps his eyes closed. He’s letting out little gasps as he cries and he can’t stop, has no reason to stop, but he’s not dead yet, he’s warm, and comfortable if in pain, and the daemon’s stroking his hair again and Prompto flinches each time.

Nothing happens. Prompto shakes, cries quietly, his wounds throb and he aches, and the daemon strokes his hair.

Nothing continues to happen, and Prompto… doesn’t relax, not really, his fear continues to course through his thoughts and veins and he wants to flee but his body isn’t working, but he gives in to exhaustion by increments. He doesn’t understand what’s happening, but even the daemon’s cool hand begins to feel soothing.

He doesn’t want to fall asleep like that, but he does.

…

The daemon is above him and he lashes out screaming.

The daemon holds him down. Prompto’s thrashing and flailing and everything hurts, but he can’t die here, but he’s panicking, and he panics more when the daemon’s weight settles on top of him, arms and legs pinned beneath him.

He can no longer flail but he tries, and the daemon’s face is right above his own. Its breath is cold on his cheek. Prompto turns his head away, not wanting to look into its glowing red eyes, not wanting to see death coming.

Prompto whimpers and shakes, and the daemon continues to restrain him. He grows exhausted easily and lets his body go slack. He becomes brave enough to look into the glowing red eyes of the daemon looming over him. Whatever Prompto is expecting, it’s not the calm and steady gaze he finds.

After he relaxes, the daemon slides off of him, but stays pressed to his side. Prompto tries to curl up away from it, but it follows him. A cool hand touches his neck, and Prompto flinches sharply enough to hurt his wounds. When the hand begins to rub the nape of his neck, Prompto shivers and can’t make himself stop. 

He’s too weak ( _useless_ ). He falls asleep quickly.

…

Prompto’s rolling over and trying to crawl away from the snarling before he even knows he’s awake. He’s still in the nook, and he looks to the entrance, and there are two daemons there, not one.

And they’re fighting.

He watches, wide-eyed and terrified, the daemon who’s keeping him slam the other daemon against the wall and rip its head off. It digs into the corpse’s chest, through the flesh and bone and black ichor, and pulls out a heart.

It eats the heart.

Prompto doesn’t throw up at the sight. He’s a member of Crown Prince Noctis Lucis Caelum’s Crownsguard; he’s blasted daemons to bits before with his gun. He’s seen daemons get decapitated, he’s recovered remains of Lucian soldiers after battles and daemons, he’s seen what an MT looks like without its mech, he’s seen the photos their spies have sent from the Niflheim laboratories. He’s not going to throw up just because a daemon eats a heart.

Prompto throws up because nothing stops the daemon from doing the same or worse to him.

Vomiting brings the daemon’s attention back to Prompto, who thinks, _I didn’t know I ate that_.

He hears the daemon sigh. It approaches, and Prompto tries futilely to drag himself away. The daemon grabs him around the middle, hoists him up, and deposits him on the other side of the nook.

Prompto doesn’t resist. Throwing up took the rest of his energy, and he’s shaking again, not just from fear. The daemon’s still moving around, and Prompto has to keep track of him ( _who is he joking that thing can kill him at any second why hasn’t it already might as well not even try_ ), but he’s so tired.

…

He thinks he eats something, at some point, but it might be a dream.

…

Prompto startles awake, to discover that he’s alone. No daemon in sight.

 _If I don’t escape now, I’m dead and useless_ , he thinks, heart pumping. He doesn’t want to think about hearts.

His broken leg is in a cast, somehow. It hurts, but he would rather deal with the pain than be a daemon’s toy, or snack, or whatever this thing is going to do to him. His arms hurt too, getting up, and the pain makes his eyes watery, but he grits his teeth and deals.

Prompto hobbles, and hops on his good leg. He gets out of the nook, and gets a rhythm, a bit of momentum, but soon he can’t see anything. It’s pitch black and he has no idea where in the cave he is and how to get out. He thinks briefly about going back, imagines his heart ripped out from his chest, and pushes forward.

He expects to fall, and sooner rather than later, he does. Even when expecting it, it jars his broken leg awfully. He waits out the pain, curled up in some dark corner of the cave, trying to control his breathing because he has no weapons, nothing to defend himself, he even forgot to grab his fucking clothes _why did he forget his clothes fucking stupid_ —

Two hands grab him and red eyes appear before him, and Prompto screams.

…

He doesn’t die. Instead, he’s picked up and carried in a now familiar way back to the nook. It is, in fact, the same daemon that still hasn’t killed him. 

The daemon places him back on the floor, blankets—no wait, those are furs—underneath him. It presses a clawed, steady hand against his chest until he lies down onto his back. Prompto trembles during the contact and the feel of its claws on his chest, but he watches the daemon’s face. Its face is a sallow color, like death, with black… something. It looks almost skeletal, but it’s a trick of the black coloring around its eyes and mouth. Were it not for the fact that Prompto is so close to it, it would appear that the blackness was daemon ichor dripping down its face, but it seems permanent. Its face even looks clean, bizarrely enough. What daemon keeps clean? Like all daemons, its eyes glow red. It has dark hair, stringy and dirty, but cleaner than Prompto would actually expect of a daemon that lives its entire life inside of a cave.  

Its expression doesn’t change, nor give any lead onto what it’s thinking or why it’s doing this.

It looks almost like a man.

When it’s apparently satisfied with Prompto lying down, it steps away from him. Tracking the daemon’s movement, Prompto realizes that the corpse is gone and the floor is clean again.

The daemon leaves the nook again; Prompto doesn’t try to get up this time.

…

Next time Prompto wakes, it’s to a burning pain in his shoulder. With the daemon above him, he thinks, _this is it._ He flails but hands larger and stronger than they should be hold him down.

The daemon hushes him.

No daemon has ever hushed… anyone, as far as Prompto knows. He stills and looks into the face of the daemon.

It watches him silently. It holds him down, but Prompto realizes that the wound on his shoulder is exposed and next to the daemon was… antiseptic?

“What?” Prompto says, barely mouthing the word.

The daemon watches him. Slowly lets go of him, and Prompto doesn’t move. It picks up a cloth next to it, holds it above Prompto’s injury long enough for Prompto to understand what it is about to do, and presses.

It stings. It’s not a potion, just standard antiseptic that’s a painful way to deal with wounds, even if effective. It prevents infections. And this daemon is cleaning up his wound, drying it off, and bandaging it. With less panic and growing awareness, Prompto realizes his other arm—the broken one—is in some sort of cast, like broken leg.

He’s shaking again, but he’s less scared. He’s confused, and in pain, but this daemon—what is this daemon and why is it not killing him?

The daemon finishes… taking care of him. Prompto watches the daemon meticulously put away the antiseptic on a shelf in a corner that has many other bottles. Carefully, he looks around the place he’s in. He’s still in the cave, but they’re in a little nook that has a fire burning in the corner, shelves of bottles a little ways away from it, and clotheslines which Prompto realizes his clothes are hanging from. To his great relief, his camera is there too. He wonders if it works still.

Prompto (who is in his boxers under the furs, a daemon _stripped_ him and hung his clothes up to dry, what’s even happening right now) is lying on and underneath many layers of furs and blankets. The entire floor seems to be furs.

The daemon must sleep here.

Did all daemons have lairs like this?

(Prompto suspects that the answer to that is no.)

The daemon returns, and Prompto doesn’t flinch as the daemon gently manipulates his body so Prompto’s head rests on the daemon’s lap.

Before Prompto can rethink it, he asks, “Who are you?”

The daemon smirks, slightly. Lifts up one side of his mouth really, but Prompto can see his teeth, even so. His sharp, deadly teeth. He shudders again. 

“Please,” he begs. He licks his lips, but he doesn’t know the last time he last had water. He doesn’t know how long he’s been down here. How long it’s been since Noctis heard him stop screaming. “If you’re going to kill me, just do it.”

The daemon frowns and leans to the side. It brings back a flask of water, helps Prompto sit up and drink it. Helps Prompto lie back down.

“Why is this happening?” Prompto asks to the daemon, to the Six, maybe, before he slips back to sleep with a gentle hand stroking his hair.

…

He wakes up alone again. At first, he’s elated. He can try another escape, he can get home, but trying to sit up causes his arms and leg to throb in pain and he falls to his back harder than he would like. Harder than when the daemon helped him.

Why is a daemon helping him?

Prompto is still afraid. Afraid of the daemon helping him, afraid a daemon will find him while the other one is gone, afraid of what is going to happen. But after what feels like weeks ( _how long has it been_ ), fear settles like an old, exhausting friend. Prompto can’t escape as he is—he can’t even leave the nook. He shifts, waits, and tries to sleep more. Sleep doesn’t come because he needs to pee too badly to fall asleep.

Suddenly, there is a presence to Prompto’s left, and he jolts up, only to fall back in pain. The daemon kneels by his side. When did it come back? He didn’t hear anything! Had he fallen asleep?

Then he notices what the daemon is holding.

“You’re feeding me?” Prompto says, before he can think better of it. “Aren’t you supposed to _eat_ me?”

The daemon does not speak. Prompto suspects it can’t. But it does give him a look of such condescending disgust that Prompto bursts into laughter. He begins to wheeze as the pain from his bitten shoulder pierces through his brief moment of ill-advised humor.

When the pain passes, the daemon is still sitting by his side, holding some pieces of cut up peach. The daemon doesn’t hand over the fruit, though, and Prompto realizes that with both of his arms out of commission, he won’t be able to eat. 

“Um,” Prompto says, looking at his arms. The daemon shifts, helps to prop Prompto up, and picks up a slice of the fruit and holds it to him. “Oh.” He’s hungry enough, and confused enough, to open his mouth.

The daemon’s hand, larger and clawed, gently puts a slice of the peach into Prompto’s mouth. Prompto, resting his weight on the daemon’s other hand, chews, and gets another slice when he opens his mouth. They continue like this until the fruit is gone. He feels slightly better, less queasy and empty. He’ll need more food soon—a peach is not enough for long, and he still doesn’t know how long he’s been here.

He also has a more immediate problem of needing to piss.

The daemon is helping him lie back down, and Prompto starts with, “Um.” The daemon stops and looks at him with a quirked… eyebrow? Eyebrow. And Prompto decides that it _probably_ understands him. Hopefully? It understood his comment about the food thing. But how does he tell a daemon that he needs to pee? That he needs _help_ peeing?

“Um,” he begins again, when the daemon actually waves its hand in a _go on_ sign. Which is neat, he needs to think more about that little bit of communication and its implications after he’s pissed. “I, uh. I need to piss.”

The daemon nods. Helps Prompto up, but more carries him than lets him walk. They leave the nook, and Prompto grows nervous away from the light of the fire. The rest of the cave is dark. If he weren’t being held by the daemon, he likely wouldn’t know it is there.

How does it move so quietly? So close, and he can’t hear it move. He can hear his own breathing, quickening with growing fear and nervousness, but not the daemon next to him.

They get to a point where the daemon places Prompto down on his good leg, and Prompto’s bare foot touches the edge of running water.

“Oh, I just go—here?” The daemon continues to help prop him up by holding him around his chest ( _like a child_ ), so Prompto deals with the pain that comes with mobilizing his left hand to take himself out and go. His left shoulder burns, but _by the Six_ is he glad the daemon doesn’t grab his dick for him.

The sound of his pissing is too loud in the quiet cave, and Prompto doesn’t even know if daemons can feel awkward. “How long have I been down here?” he asks suddenly. He’s never been the kind of person who makes small talk with the guy pissing next to him in the bathroom, but when that guy is a daemon holding him upright so he can piss, anything that can distract from what is currently happening seems like a good thing. He’s almost done, but the inconsistent, diminishing sound of the stream and silence is even worse.

The daemon doesn’t respond verbally, because, _oh right it can’t speak stupid_ , when the daemon’s finger taps his chest three times.

“Three… three days?” It makes sense. He has been horribly injured. In all probability, he should have died. Would have died, if not for this daemon… rescuing him? If it hadn’t killed the other one.

But three days. The others must think him dead. The others probably think they heard him die.

Daemons kill people off quickly. Sometimes for food, sometimes for no discernable reason other than sport. Noctis, Ignis, and Gladio would have had to continue the mission. They would already be gone by at least a day.

Shaking, for a reason other than fear now, he puts himself away. The daemon picks him up again, and while they’re moving, Prompto says, “I… thank you. But I need to go. I need to find my friends.”

The daemon doesn’t respond, and Prompto can’t see its face. He says anyway, “They think I’m dead. We were on a mission to take out Niflheim’s laboratories—they’re doing experiments on people, making them daemons—”

The grip on him tightens, and Prompto’s voice cuts out to a squeak when he feels its claws pinpricking into his skin. “Shit, sorry, I didn’t mean—I didn’t—I’m sorry!” The grip lessens, and the daemon keeps them moving. Prompto keeps quiet, fear renewed and keeping him tense.

They return to the nook, and Prompto’s relieved to have light again. He can see the daemon’s face, and while before he would have thought that daemons didn’t have expressions aside from _murder_ or _hungry_ , the daemon doesn’t look angry. It looks thoughtful.

Emboldened, Prompto tries again, “Please, I need to leave and find my friends,” and the daemon’s nodding, a hand reaching out to rub Prompto’s uninjured shoulder soothingly. “You’re going to let me leave?” he asks, disbelieving. The daemon has only helped him, but a part of Prompto never quite can let go of the fear that the daemon is going to kill him. Daemons kill people. It’s an unshakable fact of life.

He has never heard of this happening before.

The daemon nods again. It’s looking about the nook, at Prompto’s still hanging clothes, the medicine shelf, Prompto, and Prompto’s injured shoulder. It huffs softly, approaches him, and begins to undo the bandaging.

Prompto lets it. Not that he can do anything else, but the fact a daemon is tending to his wounds is fascinating. If he were in a hospital and the daemon a human, it’s behavior would be no different from a nurse. And he can finally actually see the extent of the damage himself.

His shoulder’s a mess, but a healing mess. It has that half-healed state of the kind of wound that would bleed a body to death if potions weren’t used in time. So, okay. A daemon rescues him from another daemon by _ripping out its heart_ , saves his life with potions that it has no business knowing how to use, and helps him pee.

A thought occurs to him. “Have you helped me, uh, piss, I guess, before? When I was out of it?”

The daemon nods. It looks unperturbed, but Prompto full-body flushes. “Oh, no,” Prompto groans, because that means _a daemon handled his dick_. 

Maybe the daemon understands ( _oh, shit, did daemons even have dicks?_ ), maybe it thinks something else is wrong, but it pats his knee sympathetically. Prompto twitches a bit at the contact.

The daemon checks his broken limbs next. These, at least, took the potions better and are cleaner fixes than a daemon mauling his shoulder. They’re well on their way to mending, and the daemon places them both back in splints nonetheless.

“You’re really good at this,” Prompto offers, with a smile. He’s not sure if his smiling is working, but the daemon gives him a truly terrifying display of teeth in response, which he thinks is its equivalent to a smile. Maybe.

When Prompto’s all bandaged up again, the daemon collects his clothes from the line, and brings it back to him.

“Did you clean these?” Prompto mutters in disbelief as the daemon helps him back into his clothes. The clothes are, in fact, clean of the dirt and daemon ichor that had been on them before. This daemon took his clothes off and washed them. The daemon did laundry. “Shit. You did laundry for me. My best friend has never done laundry for me.”

The daemon laughs. It stops quickly; because Prompto stares wide-eyed at it, and its laugh is rusty and harsh, but a daemon is laughing. At something Prompto said.

His phone is still in his pocket. Prompto takes it out, tries to turn it on, and whether broken or dead, the screen remains black. “Shit,” Prompto mutters. He supposes his phone surviving what he almost didn’t is too much to ask for.

“What’s your name?” Prompto asks. “Do you have a name?” He’s dressed now, still in pain but feeling much better by being clothed. The daemon nods slowly, and Prompto doesn’t know if it’s not actually sure of its nod, or if it doesn’t want to tell him. But with a clawed hand, it scratches out a word in the stone on the wall.

_ARDYN_

 


	2. The Reunion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompto and Ardyn leave the cave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one was also pretty much edited already, so have another chapter for this weekend! The next one should be in a few days. Probably. Depends how focused I am on actually working on my thesis instead of editing and writing fic.

Prompto falls asleep again before the daemon is finished packing up its things, and wakes up carried in its arms through the dark cave. It’s much less alarming than it was before, but he experiences a strange vertigo.

“What am I going to do at the entrance of the cave? I can’t walk.” Prompto whispers, thinking of wheelchairs and old injuries that never stopped hurting the Prince.

A hand rubs his arm soothingly, and the daemon shushes him quiet. Prompto’s confused, and then wonders, _Are there other daemons around?_

They move slowly, but they make it to the entrance of the cave. It’s even daylight, and Prompto worries for a second about Ardyn, when he finally sees the daemon since waking up.

Ardyn is wearing clothes. It was before, but just pants and a worn shirt. The daemon is now completely covered, head to toe, and with a shawl wrapped around its shoulders to form a heavy hood.

The clothes are protecting it from the sunlight.

“By the Six,” Prompto says, as the daemon carries him out of the cave. “I’m sure glad all daemons aren’t as clever as you.”

The daemon laughs again, but Prompto almost isn’t afraid of the sight of those sharp, sharp teeth.

…

“Wait,” Prompto says during their trek. Even in the sun while being carried by a daemon, he still dozes off and on. “Are you shorter?”

Ardyn nods and without stretching, Prompto is about a foot higher up in the air. And then he’s back down, and Ardyn is a normal human height. Belatedly, Prompto realizes that the hands holding him up are no longer clawed. They’re smaller and human.

“ _Shit_ ,” Prompto says. “Why have you been hiding in a cave all this time?”

This time, Ardyn doesn’t make any attempt to communicate an answer. Prompto lets it go.

…

The nearest town isn’t too far, but they make the trip slowly. Prompto talks—about the mission, his friends, and his home. He can’t tell if the daemon is listening, but since it can understand him, and _doesn’t_ shush him again (or kill him), Prompto thinks the expression on its face means it’s attentive. Either way, it fills the silence, and Prompto doesn’t actually like silences that much.

He worries about talking about the war and Niflheim because the daemon reacted poorly before. That doesn’t happen this time, so he talks about how Niflheim has been trying to conquer Lucis for the past 150 years. That they had no idea that their MagiTek soldiers have people—or what was once people—inside them. That the people inside them are barely people, and were made that way.

“So we—the four of us, me, Noctis, Iggy, and Gladio—are going to break into the labs and blow them up. The four of us are pretty strong, and Noct’s the Prince—”

Ardyn stops walking, and Prompto stops talking.

Ardyn starts again, and Prompto, in a fit of bravery, says, “What was that about, Noct? Noct being the Prince.” And surprisingly, Ardyn nods slowly. “Yeah, I know, right? It’s super weird, being friends with the Prince of Lucis. But he’s cool. He doesn’t care that I’m not, you know. Somebody.” The daemon glances down at that. Prompto doesn’t know what to make of it, so he keeps going. He should probably stop talking, but he doesn’t. “He even made me one of his Crownsguard! Me! Can you believe that?” Prompto laughs, maybe a bit more hysterically than he ought to. “I can’t even survive without a daemon saving me.”

The daemon outright growls, and Prompto’s common sense catches up with his mouth. The rest of the trip passes in silence.

…

Prompto makes it to the town alive, and he’s so happy he cries, but he won’t admit to it. He points Ardyn to the diner.

They enter as a strange sight. The owner—Prompto remembers his name was Gregory—stares. “Holy shit, son,” he says. “Your friends said a daemon got you.”

“I’m okay!” Prompto says, smile bright. “I was rescued,” jerking his head up to Ardyn’s covered faced.

“You do not look okay,” Greg says.

“Well, I’m getting there. When did my friends leave?”

“Yesterday morning—here, sit, sit. Are you hungry?”

Prompto’s stomach clenches. “Yes, please.” They go to a booth, and Prompto takes up a side entirely by himself. “And can I use your phone?”

“Of course. And, ah, for your friend here?”

Prompto is not a good liar, which is a fact of common consensus. He stutters, flushes, even runs away. But those lies are always about things that don’t matter so much. They’re not like, for example, the tattoo on his wrist, or a strangely intelligent and helpful daemon that he owes a hell of a lot to, the least of which not revealing it as a daemon.

“My savior,” Prompto says grandly, with a smile. “He’s not able to talk, though.”

Greg, fortunately, accepts this. For a heart-stopping moment, gives Ardyn a companionable smack on the shoulder. Prompto envisions growling and blood that’ll ruin his lie, but Ardyn just nods when Greg adds, “Good man! We need people like you. Your food is on the house.”

They order food, and Greg brings his phone over. Prompto knows all of the guys’ phone numbers by heart—Noct because he’s his best friend, and, well, the _Prince_ , Ignis because he manages Noct’s schedule and if he can’t reach Noct then at least he can always reach Iggy, and Gladio because they fuck sometimes.

He calls Noct.

“ _Yeah_?”

“Noct!” Prompto says, relieved Noctis answered his phone. Explaining that he isn’t dead in a voicemail would have seemed inadequate. “It’s me.”

Silence. “ _Prompto?!_ ” In the background, Prompto hears the exclamations of Ignis and Gladio.

“Yeah, dude. It’s me. I’m alive.” Noct says nothing. Prompto can’t imagine his face at that moment. He can’t tell if he’s sorry or not that he can’t see it. “Um… surprise?”

“ _What—how—we thought you were dead_.” Noct sounds accusatory, but also like he’s going to cry. Did he cry when they thought Prompto died? The thought makes him feel sick.  

“I thought so, too. Really surprised when I woke up.” He’s shaking again, this time in relief. He pulls his hand from the table to his lap, and gives in to the desire to rest his head on the cool table.

There’s muffled talking Prompto can’t make out, and he can hear Ignis saying, “ _Ask him where he is_.”

“I’m in Greg’s diner, near the cave.”

Noct takes in a shaky breath. “ _We’re only a day away. We’ll double back for you_.”

“Thanks, man.” But they still have a mission to complete. “Just so you know, I’m going to be pretty useless. Unless if Iggy can work his healing mojo and fix me up, but I’m not fighting ready right now.”

“ _Ignis can heal you_ ,” Noct says. A reassurance made an order. “ _We’re back on our way now_.”

“See you soon, bro.”

A pause. “ _Yeah_ ,” Noct says. “ _See you soon_.”

An uncomfortable pause. Prompto knows that they should wait until they get back to tell them what happened, because they’ll all want to see him alive and hear the story all at once. But it feels so cold to just… hang up on Noct. After what happened, what Noct must have gone through these past few days.

“Dude, don’t worry. I’m alive and in one piece. I’ll tell you about it when you get here.”

He hears a weak chuckle. “ _Yeah. Yeah. I’ll keep you to that. Don’t go anywhere, okay? Get a room at Greg’s and wait until we get there. We’ll pay for his trouble when we get there_.”

“You’ll probably have to wake me up. I’m going to eat and then sleep until I can’t anymore.”

“ _As long as you wake up_ ,” Noct says, and Prompto’s glad his head’s on the table. Guilt twists on his insides for what his friends went through on his behalf.

“I know, Noct. I know. I’m so sorry. But I’m okay, I swear.”

“ _Good. Good. We’ll see you soon, Iggy’s actually speeding. Uh, he’s speeding a lot._ _Don’t go_ anywhere _, okay_?”

“Okay. Okay.”

A pause. “ _See you soon_.”

Prompto doesn’t want to say good-bye. “See ya.”

Noct hangs up. Prompto puts the phone down, and covers his face with his arms.

A hand gently pats his hair, and he looks up.

“We’re going to have to explain you,” Prompto says. “That is, if you’re staying. Are you?”

Prompto’s relieved when Ardyn nods. Because he wants the daemon to stay.

Go figure.

…

Since the guys are a day away, they go to the room Greg gives them to rest. Prompto accomplishes eating with minimal help from Ardyn—it sucks and it’s embarrassing but his left arm only moves so much, and he really hopes Iggy can fix it. He realizes he could shower, followed by the thought that showering would actually be _really difficult_ as he is, and then with the disquieting realizing that he’s really not as gross as he should be.

 _A daemon gave me a sponge bath_ , Prompto despairs, quietly, then decides that the ordeal of showering isn’t worth it when a daemon has apparently already helped him bath while he was unconscious. He hops over to the bed and awkwardly gets in.

Prompto wants to sleep, but he doesn’t let himself yet, even though he’s lying down on the sole bed in the room. “So, uh. Ardyn?” Ardyn is sitting in the table chair, still covered entirely. Prompto can see his pale chin, which looks human enough. His head moves so that Prompto is pretty sure he’s looking at him. “What do you want to tell my friends? ‘Cause, um… I’m pretty sure I can convince them not to kill you, but… I can’t guarantee it either? And if you don’t want me to do that anyway, that’s cool, but I don’t think we’d be able to keep it from them for very long. If you want to come with us. You want to come with us, right?”

Ardyn nods.

“Okay, cool. But yeah. With the five of us traveling in close quarters, your… daemony… daemonness…. Daemonhood? It’s going to get discovered very quickly. If not you know. Immediately. Noct probably wouldn’t notice for a while, but Iggy’s scary smart and Gladio’s just scary.”

Ardyn nods again, leaning onto his propped arm. He looks unconcerned.

“Okay, so… yeah. I guess I’ll tell them and then convince them not to kill you.” Prompto chuckles, nervously, but the daemon doesn’t react, lounging in the chair. He almost looks the picture of indifference. Being a daemon kind of ruins it, though.

For a moment, Prompto wonders if his friends would be able to kill Ardyn if they tried. If Prompto isn’t successful convincing them not to. The daemon seems remarkably unconcerned about Prompto’s explanation, and he is willing to bet a lot of gil that it isn’t faith in Prompto’s persuasiveness.

Sleep takes a while to come. Prompto’s healed enough for his lack of activity to make him antsy. Eventually, he falls asleep.

…

Ignis really does speed, because they’re back after Prompto wakes up from a twelve-hour nap.

Prompto hears them before he sees them, the three of them pounding up the staircase—Noctis’ uneven gait giving them away—and bursting through the door. Noct first, Gladio second, and Ignis third, and then Prompto’s surrounded.

Noctis sits down on Prompto’s left side and takes his hand. Ignis comes over to the other side and Prompto can feel his mana prepping healing spells. Gladio stands by the foot of the bed, his body angled towards Ardyn’s. He—and probably Iggy—has already noticed the extra presence in the room.

“Prompto,” Noctis says, eyeing his bandages. Prompto wonders if he’s noticed Ardyn. Probably—but regardless, with Gladio and Ignis here, he directs his attention to Prompto. “What happened?”

Noctis’ attention is on Prompto, but both Iggy and Gladio are focused on Ardyn. “Hello,” Ignis says, voice cool and curious. “Who are you?”

“Guys, this is Ardyn. Ardyn, the guys. He rescued me from becoming daemon food.” There. That was a good way to start. “Um, I made a friend. He’s a friend.” Not as good. “Don’t hurt him.” Bad. That was bad.

“Why would we hurt the person who _saved_ you?” asked Noctis, because he’s sweet, but Ignis and Gladio grow more suspicious. Very bad.

“Is there a _reason_ why we would want to hurt him?” Gladio asked slowly.

“No?” Really bad.

“Stop,” demanded Noctis. “He saved you, that’s good enough for now. Prompto, _tell us what happened_.”

There are two ways Prompto can see doing this—tell the story, skipping over the teeny tiny little detail of what Ardyn actually is and then lay it on them once they’ll all enamored with how much Ardyn did for him, or tell them now so he can defuse the suspicions that Ignis and Gladio are definitely nurturing right now and tell the story in full, bizarre detail.

“Don’t freak out. Any of you.”

“You’re freaking me out right now,” Noct says.

Despite the hours he’s had to prepare, Prompto has no idea how to explain this in a way where no one would get hurt. “Um. Okay. Ardyn happens to be a daemon, but he saved my life, so it’s cool?” And that certainly is not it.

“ _What_?” Gladio yells, summoning his hugeass sword—distinguishable from his other swords that Prompto calls ‘a fucking monster’, ‘bigger than I am’, and merely ‘huge’—while the others quickly follow suit.

Ardyn stands, his hood falling off and revealing his daemonic face. His face reminds Prompto too strongly of that time when he killed another daemon and ate its heart, and Prompto propels himself up.

The room is tiny, even for two people ( _does a daemon count as people?_ ). It is really meant for a solitary hunter to rest easy for a night, _maybe_ two if the hunters are really good friends, and with five people in the room, it’s almost claustrophobic.

With five people, four gearing up for a fight, and those four armed to the teeth with giant swords and literal teeth, blood was going to spill and property destroyed.

“He saved my life!” Prompto yells, scrambling off the bed. He’s still not that great at standing, so he falls. Ignis reaches for him, and as far as they are he can’t reach, so Prompto lands on the ground with a thump.

There’s a silence. Prompto’s fall, even though it hurt and his cheeks pinken from embarrassment, breaks the tension. All of them reached for him while he was falling, and their bodies shift as the guys and Ardyn consider each other.

Then Noct says, “For fuck’s sake, Prom.”

“I told you guys not to freak out.”

“There’s a daemon in the room and we just found out that you _weren’t_ actually horribly eaten by a daemon. Freaking out was inevitable.” Noctis crosses the room—so, like four strides—to Ardyn.

“Thank you for saving Prompto,” he says, princely authority bleeding into his voice. “How did you—that is, why are you—why did you help?”

Ardyn stares intently at Noctis’ face until he shifts backwards a bit in discomfort, and Prompto interjects, as he pulls himself back onto the bed with Ignis’ help. “It can’t speak. Or it just hasn’t. It can write though.”

“So could we get…it? Is that what we’re using?”

“Well, I guess we can ask that, at least,” said Gladio. “Hey, Ardyn, are you an it?”

Ardyn’s eyes flicker to Gladio. It—not-it—shakes… not-its head.

“Alright, not it. How about he?”

Ardyn nods _his_ head slowly.

“There. Problem solved.”

“We can get him something to write with,” Ignis muses. “You can write with a pen?”

Ardyn nods his head slowly, again.

“Great,” Noctis says. “We’ll get him something to write with _after_ Prompto tells us what happened.”

Prompto breathes. “Got grabbed by a daemon. It dragged me away and almost took a chunk out of me—my left shoulder,” before Ignis can ask, “and I broke my right forearm and my left leg at some point. Then the daemon was gone. Ardyn tore it off me, I guess. And killed it. And ate its heart. Did I mention he eats daemon hearts because he eats daemon hearts and it’s a little freaky?”

“A cannibal daemon?” Gladio wonders aloud. Ardyn shrugs, maintaining the fine line of condescending interest.

“Right so… woke up, with this guy, in his part of the cave. He bandaged me up and helped me, even when I was freaking out of my mind and terrified. And, uh, when I was well enough to be awake for a while, I told him that I need to find you guys for our mission and he seems really interested in destroying Niflheim labs?”

“The daemon wants to help us in our mission,” Noctis repeats. Prompto nods. Ardyn does not. Prompto looks at him curiously, but Noctis continues, “We’ll ask him about that. Ignis, heal him up as much as you can, then you and I are going to find Ardyn something to write with. Gladio, you’ll stay here with Prompto.”

Ardyn seems tense and suspicious, but nods anyway. The rest, of course, do as their Prince commands.

…

After Ignis works his magic, Prompto takes a shower.

When he comes out, it’s only Gladio in the room. Prompto is prepared for him to ask, “Anything else you need to tell me?”

Prompto sighs. “No? I mean, a daemon was just taking care of me for days.” Gladio doesn’t say anything, so of course Prompto says, “He helped me pee. He’s totally still scary because he’s a daemon, but it’s hard to be really afraid of someone who does a solid for you like that.”

Gladio’s _expression_. “A daemon helped you pee?”

“Yeah, I _know_.”

Gladio mulls this over. “Okay. What else?”

Prompto shrugs. “He had his own little den in the cave. Furs, a clothesline—he did my laundry. He had a shelf of medicine, even. He, uh, killed another daemon in front of me and ate its heart, which was fucking terrifying. But he didn’t eat my heart, so… good?”

Gladio doesn’t look amused. He comes over and Prompto thinks he’s just going to sit down on the bed, but instead he carefully lies down on his side next to Prompto. He places his large, warm hand onto Prompto’s chest over his heart. “Yeah, Prompto. That’s very good.” Gladio’s hand begins to gently rub his collar bone. “I can’t believe you’re alive.”

Prompto closes his eyes, feeling Gladio’s rough callouses through his thin shirt. “I can’t either. I really can’t.”

Gladio is silent for a little while, keeping up the motion. He closes his eyes to the touch from his hand, and the solid warmth of his body next to his. They don’t usually take quiet moments like this. Prompto never relaxes enough before or after sex to just lie with Gladio. Or they just didn’t have time. But now, exhausted, there’s not much else he can do.

“I thought I would never touch you again.” Gladio shifts on the bed, and Prompto opens his eyes just in time to see Gladio before he gets kissed. He’s careful not to put his weight on top of Prompto—he’s healed now, technically, but he’s tender and aching. Gladio kisses him much more softly than he ever has before.

Prompto would speak, but the kiss doesn't relent, so he hums instead. Prompto then lifts his hands up to pull Gladio closer to him, but he pushes his hands aside. “Don’t—just let me—Ignis will kill me if I don’t let you rest.”

“This isn’t letting me rest,” Prompto pants as hot kisses are peppered onto his neck.

His hot breath puffs over Prompto’s sensitive skin, and he pulls at the hem of his shirt. “It would be if you stayed still.” Prompto squirms to his side, reaching for Gladio’s hair, but he intercepts his hand and presses a kiss to it. “Just let me touch you.” Gladio lets out a shaky breath, and Prompto pulls back his hand, uncertain. “I don’t need… just let me touch you.”

Prompto lies back down. Gladio leans forward to kiss him, supporting himself on his left elbow. His other hand reaches down into Prompto’s shorts.

“ _Oh_ ,” Prompto breathes. His hands flutter, not wanting to interrupt him again, and he settles for grasping the sheets to keep them to himself.

His large, calloused hand works him up slowly, the tempo of his hand on his dick matching his kisses. The pace quickens as the desperation in Gladio’s kisses edge in on the gentleness, and hot, fiery kisses pepper Prompto’s face and neck while Gladio’s firm grasp gets him hard and gasping.

As he comes into Gladio’s fist and his own boxers, Prompto’s hands leave the sheets to grip Gladio by his arms. He can _feel_ the strength of Gladio's muslces holding him up, and the subtle shift as he presses against his body, pushing him down into the cheap mattress.

He carefully lets himself down, stretching out long and hot on Prompto's side. Gladio's right arm slings across Prompto’s chest, and he pulls him closer. They stay like that for a minute, before Prompto begins to fumble with the man's pants. “No, it’s okay,” he says, stopping his hand and pulling it away.

“But I can…” Prompto turns to his side, and realizes that Gladio isn’t even hard.

“We—I,” Gladio says after a moment. “I thought you were dead.”

“Yeah,” Prompto says, after Gladio stops and doesn’t continue. He doesn’t really understand what that had to do with Prompto reciprocating. Their unspoken arrangement had always included it. “I know. I realized. I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault.” His fingers start to sporadically caress and rub Prompto’s back, without much thought. “The three of us are all close-range fighters, and we should have accounted for the distance between us and our solo long-range fighter. When we realized the daemon had you, we were too far to stop it.” Gladio sighs. “It wasn’t… it wasn’t pretty right afterwards. Noctis was freaking out and trying to warp down to where you were, but… you had stopped screaming. We couldn’t find you.” Gladio rests his forehead against Prompto’s. “We searched. We searched for two days. We tried to get hunters to come and help us at least kill the thing that got you. But after two days…” Gladio pulls back a bit. “I told Noct that we had to keep going. That you were already dead and we had our mission to think of.” Prompto realizes that Gladio’s trembling. “I can’t even say that I’m sorry because I’m not. We had to assume you were dead.”

“It’s okay.”

“Someone had to make the call. Noctis would have abandoned the mission entirely to tear the cave apart. He would have called in more Crownsguard until he found a hint of you. Ignis is too soft on Noctis and you and he wouldn’t have told Noctis no. I had to. I had to do it.”

“I know, Gladio. It’s okay.”

“It’s not.”

“It is,” Prompto swallows, throat feeling tight and dry, body tense for post-orgasm. He doesn’t know where Gladio is going with this; of course they thought he was dead. Of course they continued the mission. He’s pleased that they tried to find him for so long, but nearly everyone isolated by a daemon is never found. A day is really the limit a person can hope, but even if the person is found, it’s never alive.

Or whole. Or in one piece.  

He clears his throat, and begins to squirm. “It was the right thing to do. In any other case, I would have been dead.” Gladio tightens his grip, holding Prompto despite his movement.

“Yeah. Yeah. Noctis and Ignis are probably questioning the daemon now, if he really can write.”

“I think so? He could definitely understand everything I said. And he… he was actually pretty good at communicating with hand signs and expressions.”

“Shiva’s tits, Prompto,” Gladio says, voice hoarse. “How the fuck did you find him? How the _fuck_ are you alive?”

Prompto doesn’t know. He really doesn’t know. He should be dead, torn to pieces or daemon food. The thought of teeth and pain makes his stomach twist, and he feels nauseous, light-headed, and dizzy. Creeping terror crawls up his throat, and he lurches from the bed and Gladio’s arms when he realizes that it’s not just terror.

Gladio grunts, and Prompto is distantly surprised that he manages to break his grip, even though Gladio’s intent wasn’t to hold him there. The other man follows him to the bathroom, and rubs his back while Prompto leans over the toilet.

“Are you okay?” Gladio murmurs.

“Yeah,” Prompto says, not quite willing to leave the bathroom yet. “I’ll be okay.”

There’s a silence, and Gladio asks, “Is there anything else you need to tell me? About what happened? Did the daemon hurt you?”

Prompto shakes his head. “The one who took me did, but not Ardyn. He was like a nurse, the entire time, even when—” There’s really no point in hiding how he thought he was going to die. “Even when I was terrified out of my mind. And really out of it, the first few times that I can remember.” Prompto sits down on the bathroom. The cool linoleum is soothing. “I puked in the cave when he killed and ate a daemon’s heart in front of me.”

“No shit,” Gladio says.

“Not because it was gross. I can handle gross. Because I was so freaking scared.”

“Of course you were.”

“But… I don’t know. He acts like a nurse. Just moved me and cleaned up the puke.”

Gladio tilts his head. “So the daemon was treating you… like a puppy.”

Prompto opens his mouth to deny it, but the truth of the statement hits him. “Yeah.”

Gladio places a hand on Prompto’s arm. “Better a puppy than food.”

Prompto closes his eyes and rests his face on his knees. Neither says anything for a while, then Prompto decides to ask about what they first started to talk about to distract from everything else. “Why didn’t you want me to reciprocate? I mean, you weren’t even hard.”

Gladio startles. “Oh. Um,” Gladio shifts around on the bathroom floor. The bathroom, like the bedroom, is tiny and is made for one average-sized person, like Prompto. Not for a Gladio-sized person, and especially not for both at once. “Do you really want to talk about this now?” Or maybe the topic is making him uncomfortable, Prompto can’t really tell, leaning over the toilet as he is like it’s the center of his universe.

Prompto stares at him. “You gave me hand job, didn’t want one in return, and you weren’t even hard. So, yeah. What’s up with that?”

“I don’t have to be hard to want to touch you. And I just really want to touch you.” Still tense and uncomfortable, Gladio shrugs. “Consider it a ‘I’m So Happy You’re Alive Handjob’.” Prompto stares at him, a bit disbelieving. Gladio sighs. “And this whole thing. Us. I think…” Gladio stops. “This isn’t working.”

Prompto tenses up. They were never serious, but rejections sting, and he has a reactionary burst of anger at Gladio’s timing. The white hot anger surprises him with the degree and quickness of it, and he snaps, “Then what the _fuck_ was that shit about touching me with the handjob? Don’t say you want to touch me when you don’t. ”

“No, I didn’t it mean it like that,” Gladio backpedals. “I think we should date. Actually date. Try the relationship thing.”

The turnabout doesn’t minimize Prompto’s anger, but it’s replaced with a milder sort that still simmers at having to go through the belief of rejection on top of everything else unnecessarily. Prompto rests his face back onto his knees, drained.

“I don’t know, man,” he says.

“That was a bad way to start that conversation,” Gladio admits. “Sorry.”

“Yeah, it was. I still don’t know. I’ll think about it. I can’t think about that now.”

“Yeah, of course,” Gladio says. “No rush. Do you want to go back to bed?”

“I want to brush my teeth first, but yeah.”

He’s been touched a lot lately, and his skin feels tight and itchy, but Prompto still lets Gladio crawl into bed next to him.

Before they fall asleep, Prompto takes advantage of having use of his arms to take a selfie of himself—and Gladio, whose eyes slit open at the movement—to document his survival. He doesn’t want to look at it now. Didn’t even look at himself in the mirror that hard while brushing his teeth. It's too hard, to look at himself and see how clearly how he only survived by good fortune. 

But maybe he'll want to see it later. Later, when his wounds aren't still tingling from their healing. 


	3. The Land of Lore

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> have I mentioned that I hate Prompto's backstory because i doooooooo. I can talk more about it on tumblr but here's my reinvented backstory for Prompto. And worldbuilding! Also, Ignis, briefly. 
> 
> Also I miscounted the chapters I had planned out. There's only 7 planned chapters (unless I add a bunch doing edits, then it might go back to 8).

Prompto and Gladio started fucking a little bit after they started running together.

Prompto runs anyway and has since middle school, and when Gladio found out shortly after Prompto joined the Crownsguard, they ran together. Before that, Prompto had never spent much time with any of the other people Noctis is surrounded with. Someone suggested—Prompto isn’t sure who—that as an associate of the Prince, Prompto needed to be able to defend himself, in case someone (a.k.a. _niffs_ ) wanted to use him against the Prince. And when the Prince is attacked, it would be useful for his best friend to be able to protect him, so it was decided that Prompto would at least get training.

After some training, Noctis suggested he join the Crownsguard, then Ignis suggested it, and then _Cor the Immortal_ gave him a compliment on his “unerring” aim, so Prompto ended up joining the Crownsguard.

All of these people Prompto had been introduced to at least. He had spent time with Gladio and Ignis while hanging out with Noctis, and had spent time alone with Ignis while in Noct’s apartment. He had even been able to convince Ignis to play video games with him. But he didn’t spend any time alone with Gladio until they went running together.

When they finished their second run together, Prompto invited Gladio inside his apartment to cool down, and ended up fucked from behind over the arm of his living room couch.

It wasn’t an effective cool down.

Running and fucking became their thing. After the second time, Prompto asked, “We’re going to be casual about this, right?” and Gladio said, “Right.”

It was good. It was fun. Running in the mornings meant that Prompto never had to deal with cuddling a stranger or an awkward morning after. And Gladio, Prompto thought, would never actually want to date someone like Prompto. Not with who he is and what he looks like. Prompto was convenient and just fine with that. The sex is great.

And now Gladio wants to date. To date him.

Prompto’s not sure if he can handle that.

…

Noctis, Ignis, and Ardyn come back, and Prompto flails to get off the bed away from Gladio, but suspiciously, no one looks surprised.

“He can definitely write,” Noctis announces. “We’re taking him with us on our mission.”

“Really?” Gladio asks.

“Indeed,” Ignis says. “He doesn’t eat or attack humans, subsisting on daemons—specifically their hearts, interestingly enough—and expressed a strong desire to attack Niflheim’s daemon-making laboratories.”

Gladio frowns, glancing at Ardyn, whose hood is up. Prompto can’t see his expression. “Isn’t that counterintuitive? More daemons means more food for him, doesn’t it?”

“We asked that,” Noctis says, much calmer and annoyingly unruffled. “I have his response. It’s pretty long, but boils down to how unethical those experiments are and how they should be ashamed of themselves. We asked if he was from one of those experiments, and the response was essentially ‘pretty much,’ which… explains a lot.”

“ _He_ used to be human?” Prompto asks, horrified. “Ardyn, I am—I am so sorry.”

Ardyn shrugs and wave a careless hand. There’s an uncomfortable silence, while they all contemplate the horrors Niflheim labs are producing. Prompto wonders if Ardyn’s fate is kinder than the others they’ve seen, who had lost themselves entirely. He doesn’t think so.

“We still have several days to drive, before we have to leave the car and walk to our target,” says Ignis, breaking the silence. “We should get going.”

…

Ignis drives, of course. Ardyn gets the front seat because making him squish in the back seemed uncomfortable for everyone involved and ungrateful for everything he has done for them. Noctis is still relieved that Prompto is even alive, and he can sleep anywhere, so Noctis goes in the middle.

Prompto leans against the window and naps. When they stop to camp, Noct draws him away and hugs him.

“I thought you were dead,” Noctis says, face buried in Prompto’s shoulder. His fingers dig into Prompto, and he grips him just as tightly.

“I thought I was dead, too,” Prompto mumbles. “I thought I was going to die.”

“Ardyn said that he lives in the caves, and that a lot of them in Lucis are interconnected if you go deep enough. He travels around through them and at night. The fact that he happened to be right where we are when we needed him was just pure luck.” Noctis gave a ragged sigh. “It was just. Coincidence.”

“I—I figured.”

“We tried to save you, but you were already gone,” Noct whispered. “Then we tried to find you, or avenge you, but we couldn’t find the daemon—”

“Because it was already dead.”

“Yeah, and I wanted to stay, but we had to go. You were dead. In any other case, you would have been dead.” They separate at this point. Prompto sits to look at the stars, and Noctis begins to do some of his stretches for his back and left knee while talking. “Gladio was—Gladio was a mess. You know he told us? About you two.”

“I figured that too,” Prompto said, an uncomfortable heat rising to his face. “What did… what did he say?”

“It came up when we were arguing about whether or not to keep looking for you,” Noctis says slowly. “After two days, Ignis suggested that continuing our search would just be tormenting ourselves, and when I said we were going continue, Gladio told me that I had to accept that you were dead and that we had a mission to complete. I… I said some things I shouldn’t have at him. They weren’t kind, and he… he said that if he could get himself together even though you two were—um, lovers—”

“He didn’t say that,” Prompto interrupts.

Noctis winces, sitting down and slowly moving his left leg in its full range of motion. “No. He said you guys fuck on a regular basis, and if he can accept it and do what he needs to that I can too, but I thought that was kind of… crude.”

“It’s more true than lovers.”

“Ah,” Noctis mutters, staring intently at his knee. He sighs. “Is it? ‘Cause he seemed pretty wrecked. Just saying.”

Prompto sighs. “I don’t know. I don’t want to talk about it right now. It’s not really the main thing on my mind.”

“Yeah, of course. Just… be a little gentle with him, okay? He wasn’t in a good place. I mean, none of us were, but… shit.”

“How’s Ignis?” Prompto asks after a moment.

“Freaked out. He makes the strategies and they’ve tried to be quiet about it, but he and Gladio were arguing non-stop about how far you were ended up from the rest of us. That—I mean, that can’t happen again. We need to do better.”

“I should go talk to Ignis, too,” Prompto says.

Noctis nods, taking a break from his stretches to pull ice to his hands and hold them against his knee. “Yeah, you should. And… I know this might be weird, but maybe Ardyn too? I think he grew attached.”

Prompto huffs. “Gladio says it sounds like he treated me like a puppy.”

A moment pauses while Noct processes that, then he chuckles. “Oh, that makes _so_ much sense. Just with how he wrote about you.”

“ _What_?”

“It was fond. And affectionate. Like he thinks you’re adorable. Like a puppy!” Noctis laughs louder. He abandons his ice, letting it fall off to the warm earth.

Prompto flushes, and is thankful Noct can’t see in the dark. “I am _not_ a puppy!”

“You totally are!”

Prompto lightly punches Noct’s shoulder. “Shut up!”

“Make me!” and Prompto lunges.

…

Prompto and Noctis became friends before they spoke to each other in person.

They were in middle school at the time. Prompto spent long hours alone at home or with his elderly neighbors and their family before he met Noct. His dad worked—and still works—long, odd hours at the hospital, and his mom never lived with them in the first place. As a hunter, Thyra only visited for days at a time every few months. Prompto loved and still loves those visits. His earliest memories are sitting in his parents’ room, his mother cleaning her guns while explaining what she was doing and why. She never visited for fun, but he would sit by her side and learn.

When he was old enough by her count, and ten to everyone else’ count, she took him outside of Insomnia and taught him how to shoot. It was much later in the Crownsguard, after Cor commented on his aim, that Propmto realized that what his mom had taught him was, perhaps, unusual. Noctis was not a typical standard to measure by, being trained in magic and warfare from a young age so he never noticed anything odd about Prompto’s upbringing. But most children’s mothers are not hunters who take their kids out to the dangerous plains outside the city’s walls to learn how to shoot a gun in a practical manner.

Prompto has since realized that his mother doesn’t know how to do anything else. But he’s happy she’s included him in what she does.

Although he’s made peace with his parents’ work schedules and busy lives, middle school before he met Noctis was brutal. Before it, he always spent time with his neighbors, who were elderly couple who fled from Niflheim decades ago. The two of them, Viola and Anna, often watched neighborhood children for cheap. Or free, for those who couldn’t afford to pay, which was often the case. But that was the way of the Niff District—his dad provided free medical care and advice for their neighbors, and in return he got child care, repairs to their apartment, hand-me-down clothes and toys, baked goods, and rare spices.

Anna was a musician who sang old lullabies in Gralean and Viola was a writer intent on documenting her life as a Niflheim refugee. Their home wasn’t the warmest but there was never a doubt that he belonged there. It was with they, not his father or mother, that Prompto learned of Niflheim, its language, and its culture from before the Empire turned on its own citizens.

Right before he went to middle school, Viola become ill. She began to forget where she was, what she was doing, and frightfully, who Anna was and why they were in Lucis. Anna had to focus on Viola, and could no longer watch him after school. At the time, faced with his heavy workload tight budget, his father deemed him old enough to be at home alone. So after school everyday for about a year, he went home to an empty apartment, did his homework alone, and made dinner alone.

His dad had bought him a cheap camera for one of his birthdays, and that occupied some of Prompto’s free time, but as a twelve-year-old, there was only so much he could do. He was never invited to his classmate’s homes or parties, being the _niff_ at school. His dad had worked hard to make sure that while he knew his mother tongue, he spoke Lucian with a spotless accent, but it didn’t matter. Prompto’s origins were written in his face.

Socially isolated from his peers and lacking neighbors his own age, Prompto spent most of his after school days at home, playing video games. When he found the online, multiplayer, role playing game Land of Lore (or just LoL), he learned what escapism was.

He also realized that online, no one had to know he was a _niff_.

It was great. He joined a guild and they went on campaigns together, and for the first time in his life, he felt he had friends outside of the Niff District.

Prompto bonded with one guild mate in particular, ramennoodle7443. They discovered they were both in middle school when they begged off of campaigns to finish up homework.

Then ramennoodle7443 sent him a private message.

noodle: _hey_

noodle: _do you play astral heroes??_

noodle: _i need a buddy to get to some stuff in multiplayer levels_

Prompto did.

aimazing: _yeah i do!!! i’ve been wanting to check out the multiplayer levels too, my username on that game’s same as this one!_

They ended up talking more in private chat about recent video games that had come out that they were playing, and soon they exchanged instant messaging handles so they could talk off of LoL.

Prompto knew they were both in school, and that noodle was probably a guy. He never wanted to reveal too much about himself, so their conversations focused mostly on the games they were playing, and noodle never talked much about himself either. noodle was also online all the time outside of school hours, which Prompto thought was a little odd, until noodle mentioned he had been in an accident some years ago.

Then one day, noodle sent him a plea for help.

noodle: _do u know anything about trig?_

noodle: _please i hate math and i don’t want to ask iggy, i told him i can do this myself and he’ll lord it over me if i can’t_

Coincidentally enough, Prompto did know quite a lot about trigonometry. He was learning it in class and he happened to be pretty good at math.

aimazing: _yeah sure what’s the question?_

noodle sent him an image of the worksheet, and the question seemed very… familiar…

aimazing: _wait what_

aimazing: _you’re not in ms. lugus’ class?_

Prompto regretted the message as soon as he sent it, in the few minutes it took noodle to respond were torture. _He’s going to find out I’m his niff classmate_ , he worried. _Which one even is he? Please don’t be Marcus. Marcus sucks._

noddle replied after some agonizing minutes:

noodle: _yeah i am_

noodle: _you are too???_

aimazing: _i am!!!!!_

noodle: _holy shit_

noodle: _what’s your name?_

Prompto didn’t want to tell him. He liked noodle. He liked his guild. He liked how he got to hang out with friends, and no one gave him shit for where he was from.

noodle: _wait no_

noodle: _wanna meet up after class tomorrow??_

noodle: _so we can both prove that we’re legit_

noodle: _and we can play beast mode together! bring your handheld_

Prompto didn’t want to do that either, but he had no real excuses to give. He thought about staying home sick to delay meeting noodle in person, wild thoughts of dropping out of school or begging his dad to get him switched to another class.

_Just rip the bandaid off_ , he thought miserably.

aimazing: _sure, that sounds good_

aimazing: _my beast team is gonna crush your beast team_

noodle: _bring it!_

Filled with dread and prepared to lose his only friend, Prompto went to class the next day and scanned his classmates, trying to pinpoint who noodle could possibly be. None of them matched his image of someone who spent their free time gaming and chatting to Prompto, but he supposed none of them know that it was Prompto they were talking to.

No one else was glancing around like Prompto was. He tried to stop, but now he found himself gripped by the fear that noodle _wasn’t_ a classmate, and some stranger online was playing him.

He waited in class at the end of the day while everyone filed out, nervously tracking the others leaving. _It’s not Marcus!_ he celebrated, completing missing the fact that _Prince Noctis_ had stopped by his desk.

“Aimazing?” The Prince muttered, seemingly unable to decide if he wanted to stare at Prompto or avoid him entirely.

The Prince was leaning on his crutch, which was a recent development. For the past couple of years, the Prince had primarily been in a wheelchair. There had always been a member of the Crownsguard, in the impressive and terrifying Lucian black uniform, present in class and around the Prince at all times. Usually fading into the background, they had been more visible than usual when they had been pushing the Prince in the wheelchair.

The Crownsguard was lingering in the back of class, Prompto noticed nervously. He had never felt safe around them, their eyes lingering over Prompto more than his obviously Lucian classmates, and worried that someday they’ll decide he’s too much of a _niff_ to be in the same class as Lucian royalty.

The word the Prince had said was so quiet that Prompto merely thought he had said “amazing” to himself, but then he burst out too loudly, “ _Noodle_?” and Ms. Lugus glanced up from her desk and the Crownsguard shifted. Prompto didn’t know which is worse.

“Is there a problem, Mr. Caelum?”

Prompto’s face burned in anger and embarrassment, but the Prince said, “No, we’re good!”

Ms. Lugus eyed them—specifically, Prompto. Really, just Prompto—suspiciously, but evidently decided that the Prince’s word was good enough for her. She left the classroom, and Prompto was alone with ramennoodle7334, who turned out to be the Crown Prince of Lucis himself.

“Did you bring your handheld?” the Prince asked. “Like I said, I wanted to battle our teams—”

“Yeah, I’ve got it here,” Prompto said, fumbling through his bag, having way more difficulty with the zippers than he should. He got it out, and clutched it to him. “What’s your type focus?”

“I like the grassy plains beasts,” the Prince said. They walked slowly to the courtyard, Prompto matching pace with the Prince, and the Crownsguard trailing behind them.

“Seriously? The frozen wastelands beasts are the way to go. They’re so strong and cool!”

“The grassy plains beasts help you construct buildings! I have the best fortresses!”

“Those buildings have terrible stats until you get to, like, level 30. I’m going to ram through them.”

“You will not!”

“ _Watch me_ ,” Prompto said, turning his game on.

They spent the rest of afternoon playing, until the Crownsguard cleared his throat and reminded Noct that he had somewhere to be.

They were friends ever since.

...

Prompto gets up early the next morning to talk with Ignis while he makes breakfast.

“What happened to you was a strategic failure, and the fact that you survived is due to your own fortitude and the good fortune of Ardyn’s presence and compassion. I assure you that my tactical plans in the future will not have such a weakness.”

Prompto stares, takes a moment to capture the image of Ignis cooking on camera, then responds, “I meant more about how you’re doing.”

Ignis stirs the cooking eggs, and pushes his glasses up with his other hand. “I’m fine. You’re alive, we have the assistance of someone who will be a boon to our strategic planning, and all is well.” Ignis adds some vegetables to the eggs.

Prompto rubs his shoulders against the chill. “If you’re sure,” Prompto says. Ignis is right. Everything is fine, so why bother dwelling on it. They’re all fine. Prompto is fine.

Ignis turns off the fire and looks up at him. Prompto tries to make his face neutral, but he’s too late. “Prompto, I don’t mean—I’d rather talk about this after our mission. I’m the strategist, and losing people is always a possibility, if not likelihood, and the fact you came back—” Ignis takes in a deep breath. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Prompto says quickly. “Yeah, I’m fine. Your magic did its job.”

“I meant _you_ , Prompto. How are you doing?”

“That’s just what I asked _you_ ,” he says, and Ignis flinches. Prompto didn’t want that to happen, and guilt stirs in his gut.

“So it was. My apologies. I suppose asking you to reveal your feelings when I haven’t done so myself is unequivocal.” Ignis dishes up several plates. “Do you know if Ardyn wants human food?”

“Oh, um… I don’t know.”

“I’ll make some extra for him, just in case.” He looks towards the tents, but doesn’t go to rouse the others. He sighs again. “I can’t talk about my feelings yet. I need to focus. After the mission, yes. But not before.” Another pause, and Prompto is about to offer to get the others, when Ignis says slowly, “I would like to give you a hug, if that’s acceptable.”

Prompto grins. “Sure thing, Iggy. C’mere.”

(Ardyn does eat and really enjoys human food. He takes his notepad and writes a page of compliments on Ignis’ cooking, and Ignis flounders as he tries to gracefully accept the praise.)


	4. The Laboratory

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Plot! Ardyn! Human experimentation (which has been added as a tag)! Niflheim! 
> 
> enjoy y'all <3

The next night at camp, Prompto goes to sit with Ardyn, who keeps covered entirely during the day, but takes his hood off at camp at night. Strangely, they think he’s more likely to be discovered at night while it’s dark because of his glowing, red eyes. During the day, their brightness appears dimmer.

Without the veil of terror blinding him, Ardyn makes for a rather striking picture, so Prompto takes one. Ardyn blinks at the flash, and turns to attention.

“Hey, buddy,” Prompto starts, then stops. How do you thank a daemon—who used to be human, who knows how long ago—for saving your life from certain death? “I’m glad you came with us.”

Ardyn nods. He reaches out and smooths his had against his shoulder. “Oh, I’m doing fine. It’s a little pink,” Prompto pulls his shirt out of the way so Ardyn can see the pink but healed flesh. “But that’ll fade soon. Iggy’s really good at healing magic.” Ardyn rubs his hand against the back of Prompto’s neck, and Prompto isn’t sure how he feels about that. _Puppy_ , he thinks, but the motion is soothing, and without the tension that now comes with Gladio’s touch.

(They still need to talk.)

He sighs and relaxes a bit. Ardyn removes his hand, and pulls out his notebook and pen.

_I used to be good at healing magic. I’m sorry I can’t anymore. It would have saved you much grief._

It’s sweet, but Prompto’s brain stutters to a stop. “You used to be good at healing magic?” he parrots.

Ardyn nods.

“But—that’s—you used to be good at magic.” There are pieces coming together that don’t fit. “How long ago was that?”

Ardyn shrugs, writes, _I don’t know. It’s hard to keep track of time while removed from the outside and society_. _It’s been a long time_.

“No guesses?”

_Long enough that I forgot how to speak._

Prompto’s jaw drops. “That’s why you can’t speak? I thought you physically couldn’t.” Noctis would have mentioned that, so he and Ignis likely assumed similar. “Holy shit. And you used to be able to do magic.”

He thinks, dizzily. _Only the royal families of Eos can do magic_. “You don’t… do you remember who you used to be?”

Ardyn hesitates but nods. Then he writes, _For the most part. It doesn’t matter, though._

“I should tell Noctis,” and Ardyn _snarls_. Prompto jerks backwards and physically away from him. “ _Shit_!”

Prompto backs into Gladio’s chest, who shoves him behind him, his sword in hand. Ignis and Noctis are quickly by his side, and Prompto shouts, “Wait! Wait, _for fuck’s sake_!”

“What happened?” Gladio demanded.

“I—I said something he didn’t like, I think—”

“Did he do this _before_?”

“No!” Although he had, hadn’t he? At very certain things. Like the human experiments, Noctis, and now this...

Ardyn’s has stopped snarling, and he’s backing away. Not more than a couple of feet, but enough to appear non-confrontational. A bit hesitantly, he raises his hands up.

“Everyone stand down,” Ignis commands, and everyone lowers their weapons, but do not place them back into the Arsenal. “Prompto, did he hurt you?”

Prompto hurriedly shakes his head. “Just snarled, but it, uh. Surprised me.”

“Right,” Ignis says. “Ardyn, what happened?”

Ardyn doesn’t move, face stony.

Ardyn saved him, cared for him, brought him back to his friends, and Prompto’s gut twists in pre-emptive guilt, but his loyalty to Noctis greatly outweighs his loyalty to Ardyn. He doesn’t even know if Ardyn doesn’t have an ulterior motive. He could still be playing them all, for some unknown reason. Prompto isn’t certain of him. He’s certain of Noctis. “I’m sorry. But I have to,” Prompto says to Ardyn, watching that impassive and lethal face. “He told me that he used to be able to do healing magic.”

Heads swivel to Prompto. “What?” Noctis says, disbelieving.

“He can’t anymore, but he used to be able to, and that means he’s from some royal family. If he remembers which one, he doesn’t say.”

“I—how old is he?”

“He says he doesn’t remember,” Prompto reports. He looks at Ardyn, but winces at his stony expression. “I said I had to tell you, and that’s when he snarled.”

“Why wouldn’t he want us to know?” Gladio muses. His sword is still in hand, still at ready, but at least it’s pointing downwards. “Well, Ardyn?”

Ardyn scowls. His teeth make it frightening, even though Prompto’s inured to it, and has more reason to trust Ardyn than the others. (He flips the flash off his camera and presses the shutter.) Still scowling and unhappy, Ardyn moves forward a little bit and grabs his notebook and pen, scrawls something, and throws it to them.

Ignis catches it, and reads aloud, “’I have answered every single one of your questions, and I saved your friend’s life. This is the one question I will not answer.’” They mull that over for a moment.

“That’s fair,” Noctis decides. “Ardyn’s proven himself plenty. Who he used to be doesn’t change that.”

A tension leaves the group, and eventually everyone goes back to what they were doing. Prompto is left with Ardyn, and he grimaces though he edges closer. “I’m sorry,” he repeats. “But Noct’s… Noct’s my Prince, and my best friend. I couldn’t keep that from him.”

Ardyn stares at him, sighs, and the antagonism falls off him like a coat. He sits back down, and pats the spot next to him.

Prompto sits.

…

Prompto wakes up in the middle of the night, head resting on Ardyn’s lap with his now familiar hand petting his hair. They had been talking—Prompto talking, and Ardyn writing—and he must have fallen asleep. There’s a blanket on top of him, so one of the guys must have checked on them before they retired for the night.

He shifts, a little sore, and yawns. “Thanks for being my pillow, dude. Sorry about that.”

Ardyn nods and waves off his thanks. Prompto realizes he doesn’t actually know what Ardyn does at night. “Do you need a tent to sleep?” Prompt asks. “’Cause I think we have a spare.”

In the dim light, Prompto can barely see what Ardyn writes next. His handwriting is already difficult to read, his hand unpracticed to writing and use of a gorgeous, but difficult to decipher, calligraphy. Which makes much more sense, given his age and background. But he reads, _There’s already a tent up for me, but I find it difficult to sleep at night. I offered to keep watch._

“All night?” Prompto asks, concerned.

 _Daemons barely have to sleep, and I am more daemon than human_.

“Oh,” Prompto says. “Well… if you’re sure. You don’t have to though.”

 _I assure you that if I did not want to, I would not have offered nor would I be here_.

Prompto doesn’t doubt that. So he says good-night and goes to join Noctis in his tent. He finds Ignis instead on his own, but he slips into his sleeping bag and falls asleep.

…

They approach their target, and all personal issues take a backseat while they go over the plan.

“Here’s what we have of the building plans,” Ignis states, placing paper on their make-shift table. “The key points are marked. If we place an explosive in all three locations, the explosion will be enough to demolish the entire laboratory.”

Ardyn scrawls, _What about the people inside?_

“Based on our intel,” Ignis says slowly. “Laboratories contain the scientists conducting the experiments and the specimens. The specimens we would have to kill at some point anyway, and the scientists must be stopped.”

_How can you be sure others won’t be in the building? Visitors? Specimens who are not lost yet?_

Ignis’s expression is grim. “That was considered, but this is our best option to hit Niflheim where it hurts. Our intel hasn’t reported that others are present inside the facilities, so the risk that a civilian might get caught in the middle is both unlikely and an acceptable casualty.”

Ardyn doesn’t look happy, but he writes, _I understand. I don’t attack or kill humans, but I will keep daemons away and off of you during your mission._

“How will you do that?” Noctis asks, curious.

 _I am a predator to them,_ Ardyn writes. _They avoid me. And I am well-equipped to kill them when they’re foolish enough to try approaching_.

Prompto suddenly remembers the cave, and asks, “Wait, then why did that daemon come to your little corner of the cave that one time?”

 _It wasn’t one, it was two. And they came because they heard your screams._ Prompto feels a little sick to his stomach at how many times he could have died, and light-headed from how much he owes Ardyn.

No one else really knows how to respond to that. Ignis clears his throat. “Well… that’s good. We don’t know how many daemons they have in there. Releasing them would mean certain death to their own people, but they’ve proven uncaring about that consequence.”

They make their plan. Gladio and Prompto plant bombs in two of the locations, and Ignis and Noctis take the other two. When he’s asked, Ardyn chooses to join Gladio and Prompto, and that’s that.

…

The lab is clean and all straight lines, with the Niflheim emblem on many of the surfaces, but just seeing it makes Prompto break out in a cold sweat and it’s more difficult to breathe steadily. It appears as a medical center, but the windows are too small and high up. The floor does not have tiles, and is a cold concrete. The walls are painted an off-white that seem strangely neutral and dim. The fluorescent lighting is too bright but lacks cheer. It buzzes unpleasantly above them.

Prompto’s throat goes dry, but he tries to joke, “You know, if I worked here, I’d probably want to commit crimes against nature, too.” His voice is hoarse, and Gladio and Ardyn both shoot him a glare.

Despite the fact that the four of them are young and they comprise a small group, they as a unit were chosen for multiple reasons for this mission. They are all especially proficient in their chosen weapons and skills. True, sending the Crown Prince adds the potential risk of losing him, which is an “unacceptable outcome as Noctis is the King’s only child. But tactically, not sending the second strongest magic-wielder in the Kingdom (the other his father, who cannot leave Insomnia) on such a sabotage mission would be much likelier to result in failure.

All members of the Glaive (and those training to be Kingsglaive, like Prompto, Ignis, and Gladio) have magic, of course. But Noctis is, by far, the best offensive and stealth magic-user. Glaive Nyx Ulric could perhaps beat Noctis in warping, but not in offensive elemental magic. Glaive Cor Leonis could waste Noctis with his magic and swords, but he isn’t much for subtlety.

Noctis is sneakier than a Prince should be, which is good in this war, at least. And his three chosen Kingsglaives-in-training are all skilled for a sabotage mission. Ignis with his knives and healing, Prompto with his sniping and status effects, and Gladio as “if shit goes down” back-up.

And, well. They’re a good team.

A few things about the cave suddenly make sense to Prompto when he sees Ardyn melt into the shadows to scout ahead.

 _That fucker_ , he thinks, remembering how scared out of his mind he was when Ardyn would appear right next to him with no warning.

Ardyn helps. He points them to guards (both MT and human), and they take them out quietly. They don’t want to kill the human guards, but, well—they’re going to die anyway. Prompto and Gladio aren’t particularly happy about that, but they’re not especially upset that the enforcers for this facility will die in the blast.

The scientists, they slit their throats. They can’t have a chance to escape.

Prompto sets the first bomb at the marked location, but they have to go further into the facility for the second one. The map they have is pretty good (and Prompto is pretty sure that the agent who got it for them didn’t make it), but there are some rooms with unknown content.

There’s a couple such rooms that are blank on their map that seem to be the quickest way to the second point, but the longer, alternative route would require getting pass a lot more guards. The four of them had decided that risking the unknown was worth it.

At first, the hallway Prompto and Gladio step into is innocuous. It maintains the same generally uneasy and disquieting feel as the rest of the compound, but with only two guards that Ardyn quickly subdues, it makes their mission seem easy.

Then Prompto passes one of the doors, glances through the windows, and stops.

Gladio stops and has his weapon out immediately, and Ardyn goes to the window.

He disappears through the door, and it clicks from the other side. Gladio doesn’t relax or lower his weapon, but he asks, “What is it?”

Prompto swallows harshly. “Human experiments…” weren’t just rumors, he would continue saying, but he feels sick.

Gladio looks grim, goes to the door, opens it, and steps through. Prompto can just see beyond him, before he steps back into the hallway and closes the door. “There’s nothing we can do for them,” Gladio says. “Let’s check the others.”

They do. After the second room, they realize they recognize some of the faces.

“Are these prisoners of war?” Prompto asks, horrified. “Are they Lucian?”

“We need to--Ardyn,” Gladio says. “How far do your shadow powers go? Can you sneak the ones that are alive back out to our meeting point? Can you get a note to Noctis and Ignis?”

Ardyn can, so they get the soldiers that are alive out of there. They debate for a minute, but restrain all of them, so they neither wander nor attack. All told, out of the thirty soldiers they find, there’s only five that are whole enough to save. They mercy kill those that are too gone to save. Prompto documents the faces, the bodies, the materials, anything that might be useful on his camera.

Noctis and Ignis get their message, and send a hastily written note on the back of what they sent, _we haven’t found any will keep a look out we’ll figure out how to move them afterwards, perhaps steal a car or two before we go_

With newfound determination, they continue to their mark. Placing the bomb is easy, and they backtrack until they get outside.

“Should we just grab a car, now?” Prompto asks. Gladio nods, and Ardyn doesn’t respond, so they make tail to the lines of armored cars the facility has.

A couple problems arise quickly, the first being that one, they have no car keys, and two, there are no key holes.

“How the fuck do they start these things?” Gladio mutters, looking like he’s about to rip the car door off to get inside.

From the start of their mission in the facility, Prompto has had a rather indescribable feeling. Not quite terror, not quite excitement, not quite anxiety. Staring at the smooth car door, something falls into place.

“Hang on,” Prompto says, and bends over to the car door. Hoping Gladio can’t see, he pulls his wristband down just enough to press the barcode to the small scanner on the door.

It beeps. And it opens.

“Well, shit, Prompto,” Gladio says, impressed. Prompto’s nervous, but Gladio goes around the side and gets in. Prompto guesses he’s driving then.

He gets in, and to start the car, he needs to press his barcode to it too. Fortunately, it’s on the left side, but it’ll be hard for Gladio not to notice. Taking in a deep breath, he does it anyway.

 _Beep_.

The car starts, and Gladio says, “Prompto…” but doesn’t continue. Prompto ignores him and drives the car to the gate, which needs the barcode _again_ and it beeps _again_ , and Prompto can feel Gladio staring at him.

At least he’s not summoning his weapon.

Prompto clears his throat. “I don’t know. I’ve always had it.”

“I see,” Gladio says, voice controlled and even. “You don’t know where you got it?”

Prompto’s not freaking out because they’re on a mission. His freak outs can wait until later. “No. My family’s from Niflheim. Maybe…” Maybe if they hadn’t moved when he was still a baby, he would have been one of the experiments down in the lab. Maybe he would have been a daemon. Or whatever’s left inside the MagiTek soldiers.

Or do they put a barcode on all of their citizens? Prompto’s never seen that on the reports, and no other Niflheim in Insomnia had one.

But… now that he’s thinking about it... most of the Niflheim he and his father spoke to were at least second- or third-generation Lucian. The ones his age and his father’s had been born in Lucis; he and his father is an exception. Niflheim that spoke Gralean were all at least his dad’s age or older. Most of them older.

Clearly, Prompto had been on his way to something unpleasant before they moved to Lucis. But--the mission. His hands aren’t shaking.

They get to the meeting point, the five of the soldiers still there. Two that are awake are moaning in pain, and a third is actively trying to undo her restraints.

Prompto kneels in front of her, and says, “Hey, hey, it’s okay--” and she lunges up, trying to bite his face. The pupils of her eyes are too large, and the iris around them faintly red. Prompto backs off.

They wait, uneasy, for Noctis and Ignis to arrive. When they show up with Ardyn with them, Prompto’s realizes that Ardyn’s silence was because he hadn’t even been there.

“We searched, but we didn’t find any other Lucian citizens,” Ignis states. His voice is steady but his face is pale. “And you got another car? Excellent. We weren’t able to get one open.”

A silence passes. “So we’re good to set the bombs off?” Noctis asks. Prompto notices that Noctis is also paler than normal, but unlike Ignis who seems shaken, his expression is barely containing a cold fury. He’s also limping a bit, but no one comments.

“Yes, Your Highness. Everything is set.”

Noctis nods. “Get them in the car and make sure they’re restrained. I don’t want anything to happen on the road after the lab blows up.”

As soon as they’re all in the car and driving off, they detonate the bombs.

Noctis watches the explosion as they leave. He looks grimly satisfied. Prompto doesn’t find he disagrees with the sentiment, and his camera clicks as he takes a shot.

…

Noctis or Gladio, neither of whom are driving, must have contacted the Crownsguards because they’re met by a couple of medical helicopters who take the soldiers away for emergency treatment in the capital. Due to lack of space, the four of them (and Ardyn, who remains discreet) are left to return on their own to the capital as planned after giving the pertinent information.

They have no reason to linger and every reason to get home quickly, so for the next several days, they drive all day, ferry across the sea, crash in hotel rooms or make camp where they are, as needed until they see Insomnia on the horizon. Ardyn takes to vanishing into the shadows when they begin to drive, so they switch off who’s in back, but by unspoken agreement, Prompto sits in the middle sometimes with Noctis so he can help stretch out and massage his hurting knee.

They also need to tell the King about Ardyn. Noctis and Ignis are adamant that King Regis needs to know about Ardyn, whether or not he comes with them, but especially if he does.

“We can’t bring a daemon, even a sentient, helpful one, into Insomnia without clearing it by the King,” Ignis says. “He also seems to have a wealth of knowledge that we need to have. Prompto, I guarantee that no harm will come to him,” Ignis reassures Prompto. “I’ll personally see to it. He saved you--”

“And didn’t actually harm any humans, not even when we needed to,” Gladio interjects, reading his book. This one is titled, _The Princess and Her Glaive_. Prompto’s pretty sure Nyx likes that one. Also pretty sure that Nyx _inspired_ that one.

“He’ll need someone to vouch and take responsibility for him, and he’ll need to be questioned extensively, but no harm will come to him.”

“Can you really guarantee that?”

“I’ll make sure of it,” Noctis says.

Prompto sighs. “That sound okay to you, Ardyn?”

Ardyn, lounging in the shotgun again, nods. If Prompto’s reading him right, he’s not happy, but he doesn’t look as worried as Prompto is.

“Yeah, okay.”

“Would you like to stay?” Ignis asks. “Or go home?”

“He should go home,” Noctis says. “Or at least go crash in my room. You look awful, man.”

“Thanks, asshole.”

“No, I mean—you’ve been through a lot. Go shower and sleep in your own house. We’ll take care of everything, I promise.”

Ardyn places a hand on Prompto’s shoulder and squeezes gently.

Prompto sighs again. “Yeah, okay. My own bed sounds good.”

…

Prompto doesn’t want to sleep. So instead of his apartment by the Citadel, he goes to his parents’ place in the Niflheim district.

His dad is home, fortunately. He smiles when he sees Prompto, and says in his native Gralean, “Prompto! You’re back from your mission? How’d it go?”

His dad is a nurse. He has no security clearance whatsoever, aside from the grueling immigration procedures when they first moved to Insomnia, and the necessary background check that was done on his family when he and Noctis first became friends. All of which essentially comes down to permission for him to be friends with Noctis. (Just to be spend time with Noctis at the Prince’s residences and escorted in public areas. The idea that Noctis would ever be allowed to go to the Argentum home in the Niff District—or to the Niff District with his niff friend—is laughable. That is not to say that Noctis _didn’t_ find a way there anyway.) He absolutely can’t tell his dad how the mission went.

So he doesn’t answer the question. Prompto pulls his wristband off, revealing the barcode. The smile slides off his dad’s face.

“You’ve never told me what this is,” Prompto responds in their mother tongue. “But I was able to start an Imperial car with it.”

“I’ve said before that I don’t want to talk about this,” and he has. One of his earliest memories are of his father gently telling him to never show anyone the mark on his wrist, to never mention it. It wasn’t difficult to convince him, even as a little kid. He could see other children’s bare, unmarred wrists, but more importantly, he saw the barcodes that were on packaged food. His toys. _Things_.

Sure, he asked his dad about it once after that, when Prompto was about nine and began to be dissatisfied with the old instruction, and questioned _why_ he had a barcode on his wrist when no one else did. His dad had yelled, furious, so he kept it covered and kept it quiet.

Prompto’s heart is heavy, and he’s exhausted, but he pushes forward, “I’m not a kid. I’m a trusted Crownsguard to Prince Noctis, I will be one of his Kingsglaives, and this thing is on my body. I need to know what it is and why I have it.”

“Prompto, it doesn’t really matter--”

“Yes, it does,” Prompto snaps. “It matters to me, and if that’s not enough for you, one of my teammates saw me using it. They’re going to ask me. _I need to know_.”

The silence is suffocating. The small apartment he grew up in is pretty much the same as it was when he was a child. The furniture is worn and comfortable, the place clean enough, and the colors bright, because Prompto used to have no sense for color coordination ever, really, but he has always liked bright, eye-searing colors. There are some childhood drawings on the fridge, but most of the fridge and wall space have Prompto’s old photos. One wall in the living room embarrassingly displays his photography in roughly chronological order. It’s nice to see the progress he’s made in his photography, but some of the old ones were just terrible.

His dad sighs and runs a hand through thinning hair. “Niflheim owns all of its citizens. Even the places conquered by the Empire don’t really feel the extent of what it does. They… experimented on you as a baby. I got you out, and fled and… eventually we got here. But they put that on you first.”

Something is weird about that. Prompto asks suspiciously, “How did you get me out?”

His father doesn’t answer right away. “Your mother,” he says slowly. “She’s a resistance fighter. She helped me.”

“What?” Prompto asks, stunned. “Is—is that why she’s never home?”

“Yeah.” His dad sighs, takes off his glasses, and rubs his eyes. “Let’s sit down. Do you need anything to drink? Eat?”

“No,” Prompto says, going to the couch. His mother, who he only gets to see once or twice a year, fights the Empire as a resistance fighter. Prompto always thought his parents were just separated. His mom’s supposed to be a hunter.

His dad sits down next to him with tea, anyway. Prompto takes a cup.

“Your mother,” _Папа_ starts slowly. “I met her after you were born.”

Prompto knows what that means, isn’t even that surprised, but he asks softly, “What?”

“About when you were born, I met her. She convinced me that it would be better for you if I took you and left Niflheim behind. You see… the Empire does experiments on its children for their MT soldiers. Most of them never returne, but I had you because you were not progressing like they wanted. They were going to take you away for further experiments, I—I couldn’t let them do that. I loved—I love my country, but I love you more. Thyra gave me a way to save you, and we all left together, but she couldn’t stay with us. Her life is her work.”

It’s a lot of information to parse through, but none of it outside of what Prompto expected, except, “But… if you met _Мама_ after I was born… then she’s not my mother.”

“She’s as good as.”

“But who was my mother then? What happened to her?”

His dad shifts uncomfortable. “I don’t know,” he admits, and at Prompto’s stunned look, he adds, “You were made as part of a required program for some citizens. I never met her.”

“A required program?”

“For the experiment. Yes.”

“Sweet Shiva,” Prompto curses in Lucian. His cup of tea trembles in his hands, so he takes a sip. It’s his favorite, and how he likes it, hot and smoky. “Have you… ever told anyone here about what happened in Niflheim?”

“I gave everything I had to your mother, who passes it along to Lucian Intelligence Agents,” his dad says. “I wanted to raise you as normally as possible, and that didn’t include telling everyone that you were once a Niflheim experiment.”

That would have made his childhood so much harder, and just being obviously a _Niff_ immigrant ( _a refugee_ ) had made school as tortuous as Ifrit’s domain. “Thanks, _Папа_ ,” Prompto says.

“Don’t thank me,” his dad says, mournfully. “I should have told you sooner, but then you befriended the Prince, and I didn’t want--I didn’t want this to ruin your life.”

“I get it, _Папа_.”

“I love you. You’re my son, and I love you.”

Prompto believes him. “I love you, too, _Папа_.”

They sit in silence for a while. “Are you staying here tonight? Are you sure you don’t need any food?”

“Yeah. I’d like to. And food sounds good now.”

…

Before he goes to bed, Prompto sends a text to Noctis asking how things were going, and calls his mom.

She doesn’t answer, so he tells her voicemail that he’s home safe with _Папа_ , that he loves her, and hangs up.

She never calls back, but Prompto’s been at peace with that for years now.


	5. Gladio

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They talk. Amongst other things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> everyone's getting thirsty for gladio with the DLC stuff, so here's my contribution

Prompto and his dad have breakfast together before dawn because his dad needs to go into work and Prompto wants to see his dad before he goes.

Prompto wonders—well, he still has questions. They sit, unformed on his tongue after the heavy blow he discovered last night, his thoughts reeling and muddled. They can wait. He can wait until the thoughts crystallize and he knows what he should even ask about.

Noct says in text that everything’s fine, so Prompto heads home to his apartment for another day of required down time. He decides not to go running, still exhausted from his conversation with his dad and everything else.

His own apartment is a little nicer than the one he grew up in. Nurses make a decent amount in Insomnia, but his dad isn’t the most desirable candidate, being Niflheim. As a Crownsguard, Prompto offered to help his dad get a nicer place, but his dad refused. He likes his home with the memories of his son growing up. Remembering that conversation settles Prompto’s own unease a bit. His father kept secrets for good reason, and Prompto has no reason to doubt that he loves him.

Like his family’s home, there are photographs on the walls, but these are more recent and for his portfolio. Prompto has some prints of his favorite photographs up on the wall, to remember what he aspires to, and his collection of videos, games, and books are all along one wall. It’s not as clean as it could be, dusty from his weeks-long absence.

The furniture was new when he bought it and isn’t that worn yet. Still, everything is comfortable, and in his own home, Prompto doesn’t have to worry about any more emotional conversations for a while. And he finally feels like their mission has really come to an end.

He loses himself in a video game, which works well for a couple of hours, until there’s a knock on the door.

He squeezes his eyes shut, as there’s only so many people that can be and Prompto still needs to have a rough conversation with most of them. He’s already at full capacity with the amount of emotion he’s able to process in such a short amount of time. Prompto considers pretending he’s not home and not answering, but immediately dismisses that route as unnecessarily cruel to his concerned friends. Sighing, he gets up and answers the door.

It’s Gladio, in his running wear. Prompto leans against the doorframe.

“You didn’t meet with me at our normal spot,” Gladio says immediately. “I was concerned.”

It’s long past the time they would ordinarily meet up. “I’m fine,” Prompto says. “Just tired. It’s been a rough month.”

“Yeah,” Gladio says. A tense stalemate passes, where Gladio stands on his doorstep expectantly and Prompto doesn’t move. “Well, can I come in?”

Prompto owes Gladio a conversation, some kind of response to his question, but he’s pretty emotionally drained and doesn’t want to deal. “You can,” he says, stepping out of the way, “but I don’t want to have a deep conversation right now.”

“Alright,” Gladio muses as he enters the threshold. “What about not talking?”

Yeah, that—that Prompto was good at.

…

Gladio picks Prompto up, hands gripping his ass, and crushes him against the wall. He kisses Prompto as hard as he did the first time they did this. Prompto wraps his legs around his waist, grinds up against him, and threads his fingers through his hair.

It feels good, being manhandled by Gladio. Prompto’s a pretty average sized guy, but being so comparably smaller teeters on unnerving and exciting, and his gut tightens pleasantly.

Gladio likes his lips and neck, and pays those areas a lot of attention. He kisses, nips, and licks until Prompto’s aroused enough to say, “We both have way too much clothing on.”

He hums. “Change of location?” He mouths under Prompto’s ear. “I’d like to fuck you into the mattress.”

Prompto’s dick approves of that idea. “Yeah.”

Gladio doesn’t set him down, but rather, carries him to the bedroom. Prompto would complain, but given that they had managed multiple times to not make it to the bedroom when making out, he admits it’s easier.

Prompto’s bed is still made from before he left on the mission, but Gladio keeps him up with one arm while pulling the covers off his bed with the other. Prompto quivers.

That’s about the only warning he gets before he’s thrown onto the bed, and he bounces, before a long, muscular body is covering his.

“Too many clothes,” he mutters again because they both still have shirts and pants, too hot and tight and constrictive.

Gladio sits back, knees braced on either side of Prompto’s waist, and pulls his shirt off, and for a brief moment, Prompto admires the stretched and sculptured muscles above him. Then he slips his hands up under Prompto’s shirt, and Prompto quickly chucks it off. He reaches down to undo tug his sweatpants off and he gets about halfway before Gladio distracts him by sucking on his nipples. His back arches, and Prompto writhes a bit, trying to find friction for his dick, but Gladio pins both his wrists down with one hand and holds his hips down with the other while lavishing attention to his nipples.

Prompto’s nipples aren’t especially sensitive, but with the licking and nipping, they grow tender and pert. “Come on,” Prompto orders, frustrated with how little he can move. He twists and he turns, but Gladio’s hold is stronger than he is. Worse still, he can feel Gladio’s body, the firm contours of his musculature pressed against him, but he can’t get any _friction_ because he _can’t move_.

Oh, but he would be lying if he says he doesn’t like how Gladio feels on top of him.

Gladio lets go of his wrists, and Prompto, regardless of what he just said, immediately pulls Gladio down for a kiss. It’s slower and more indulgent than the pace before, and Prompto smooths his hands over the broad shoulders and chest, lingering over his pecs.

Kisses trail down his neck, his chest, his abs, and finally, _thankfully_ , to his dick. He licks a slow strip down the side of the shaft, causing Prompto to swear, before taking the head gently into his mouth. Working the base with his hand, his tongue swirls around the crown, and Prompto struggles to move his legs out of the way with his sweatpants still trapped around his ankles.

When Prompto’s hands in his hair become urgent, he pulls back and unceremoniously flips him over. Prompto breathes out to relax onto his elbows and knees while he listens to Gladio get up to open his drawer for condoms and lube. The bed dips when he returns, and Gladio squeezes the right side of his ass just before biting the left. Prompto yelps, which turns into a sigh when a finger is slipped inside of him.

He lowers his face down to the sheets, closing his eyes in the sensation. It’s been a while, but Gladio’s finger probs him easily. A second is soon added, and Prompto begins to feel a slight stretch. His body adjusts, and Prompto moans when Gladio adds a third, picking up his pace and making Prompto’s limbs tingle.

“Like that, do you?” he murmurs, and Prompto intentionally clenches around his fingers.

At Gladio’s sharp intake of breath, Prompto says, “I’d like your dick even more.”

Long, thick fingers twist inside him and his back arches. “You ready?”

“Yeah,” Prompto groans with a particularly deep thrust. “Hurry it up.”

Gladio slipped his fingers out, leaving Prompto feeling empty and wet while he slicks himself up. And then, mercifully, a hip presses up against his ass, and the man himself curls around Prompto’s body. Even in this position, Gladio can cover him completely, and the arm supporting him reaches the bed easily from above Prompto. He quivers as Gladio lines up and slowly enters Prompto.

Gladio isn’t _huge_ , but he’s pretty proportional, which is still kind of huge. It doesn’t hurt, since Gladio has an annoying habit of going slow because he _likes_ it when Prompto orders him around while writhing on his dick.

Prompto goads, “That all you got, big guy?” which is all the warning necessary for when Gladio sharply thrusts all the way inside, punching out the air from his lungs and making him slide forward on his elbows. Prompto grunts, and gets out, “About time.”

“You’re so demanding,” Gladio says, his left arm still supporting him while he right comes up to wraps around Prompto’s torso. He pulls out slowly, and just as steadily pushes back in.

Prompto squirms, and swears, trying to get Gladio to go “Faster, dammit,” but the pace persists. He holds him still, and Prompto moves so much that Gladio crushes him flat against the bed while keeping the same slow, agonizing pace. Between the hard cock pinning him down and the mattress, he has no room to move.

Gladio even has the gall to chuckle at his struggles, as he mouths the nape of Prompto’s neck. Occasionally, Prompto feels teeth.

The slow pace builds heat up in his gut, and he tries to squeeze a hand down to his dick to get himself the rest of the way off, but Gladio beats him to it. His hand is large and hot, and Prompto shudders into it.

And Gladio, because tormenting Prompto with a slow fuck isn’t enough, maintains his slow pace in the handjob too.

Prompto curses when he comes onto his sheets, gripping the sheets, feeling his body clench and go taut, before going limp and tingly. _Now_ Gladio quickens his pace, panting as he slides in and out of Prompto with controlled speed, making Prompto moan and whine until Gladio tenses and stills.

He relaxes onto Prompto, still sheathed inside, one armed pinned beneath them both. He’s warm, and soon he’ll be too hot and heavy for Prompto, but right now he’s enjoying the weight.

And for the first time in a while, he’s not in any particular rush.

Gladio sighs into Prompto’s hair, pulls himself out of Prompto who twitches at the sensation, and rolls off. “You good?”

“Hm, yeah.” Prompto’s loose and warm, and doesn’t want to get up. Though he does have the basic decency to ask, while cracking open an eye, “You?”

Gladio smiles. “More than good.” The head of his hawk tattoo is visible on his left pec, and Prompto is overwhelmed by the sudden urge to trace the feathers of the tattoo with his tongue. He doesn’t act on it.

“I can get us food in like. Fifteen minutes?”

“Food sounds good,” he says. “Mind if I use your shower?”

Prompto grunts or says something to mean yes, and Gladio goes off to the bathroom. After ten minutes, he gets up to go scavenge some breakfast.

…

There’s not much in his kitchen that’s still good after a month. He finds some eggs that should be fine and frozen sausages, so he gets on that.

Prompto hears the shower turning off, and Gladio moving about the bathroom and room. Breakfast is pretty much ready, and he gets an idea. When Gladio enters the kitchen, toweling off his hair, shirtless, and just in a pair of sweatpants he forgot Gladio had left in his apartment, Prompto snaps a picture.

“What’s that one, ‘post shower fashion’?”

Prompto grins. “Maybe I just wanted a shot of you wet and shirtless.”

“Ifrit, we can do a photoshoot just with that if you’d like.”

Prompto makes up both their plates, and adds a bit more honestly than he would like, “I doubt we’d get very far into the shoot before I got distracted.”

He chuckles. “I’ll take sex as payment for modeling,” and Prompto goes bright red and shoves the plate at him.

“How’s things at the Citadel?”

“Fine when I left last night,” Gladio responds. “Ignis and Noctis were still there when I left, to make sure Ardyn got good treatment. He’s in good hands, Prompto. Don’t worry.”

“Yeah.”

Prompto focuses on his food, and some moments pass in silence.

Gladio sighs, “I actually didn’t come here to talk.” At Prompto’s look, he adds, “Or for sex. I just wanted to check in on you.”

“We do need to talk though,” Prompto says.

“It doesn’t have to be now.”

“We might as well.” Despite that, Prompto has no idea what to say. He starts simple. “What would change?”

“What?”

“What would be different?” Prompto asks. “Like what do you want that you’re not getting from what we’re already doing?”

Gladio stares at him long enough for Prompto to shift uncomfortable, and before he can speak Prompto darts up to take their empty dishes to the sink. When he turns back around, Gladio’s resting his chin on his hands and has a contemplative expression.

Prompto looks around to an excuse to stay standing, thinks about actually doing the dirty dishes right now despite knowing it would be a terrible idea, when the doorbell rings. Prompto can see the other man’s frustration before he’s out the kitchen and at the door.

He opens it without checking who’s on the other side, and finds a rather bedraggled Ignis. “Igster! You look… kinda bad, actually. What happened?” which is all he gets out before Ignis steps forwards and hugs him. “Oh, whoa, missed you too, buddy, but uh, I kinda reek right now.” He probably really does, he hasn’t showered yet. He hadn’t showered at his dad’s before he came home, and after the sex he just had with Gladio… Ignis is probably regretting holding him so close right now. They’re pressed against each other tight, and Ignis is tall enough that his nose is right by Prompto’s hair, which is sweaty and gross.

“By the Astrals, you do, but I am so relieved you’re alive to stink,” Ignis says, and something clearly catches up with something else because then he asks, “You smell _really_ bad. Why do you… oh!” He releases Prompto. “Oh, I see. Apologies for interrupting. I can come by later.” And he high tails it out of there before Prompto can stop him.

“That was weird,” Prompto says, turning around. Seeing Gladio’s head peeking out from the kitchen as he leans precariously backwards in his chair, he says again, “That was weird, right?”

“It was,” Gladio agrees.

“Is he not cool with… with this?” Prompto asks, motioning to the space between them. It seems unlikely. Ignis had never said anything about men having sex with men before, and he hadn’t mentioned it at all after Gladio revealed that they were having sex, but maybe that’s a sign of discomfort? _He’s avoiding it because he doesn’t like it_ , Prompto thinks. What if he stopped liking Prompto, by extension?

But to his surprise, Gladio laughs. “Ignis, being uncomfortable with sex? No way. He loves having sex, and he’s not picky.”

“Then why…”

“Maybe it’s because we’re his friends?” Gladio shrugs. “Or maybe it’s just as he said, that he was interrupting. Which he was, but maybe he thought we were just having sex, or in the middle of sex.”

“Oh.” That makes so much more sense. _Stop being so insecure. Of course Ignis isn’t going to start hating you._

“I’ll call him later, and you probably should, too. But, I believe you asked me a question.” Gladio gestures to the empty chair at the kitchen table expectantly ( _dude, it’s my apartment_ ), so Prompto sits down.

“I want a relationship,” Gladio says without any more preamble or interruptions. “The sex is great. But I’d like to stay afterwards.”

“You’re staying now,” Prompto interjects.

“I don’t usually.”

“Because we usually have to get to the rest of our day.”

“I’d like to spend time with you that’s not just a quick fuck after our runs,” Gladio states firmly. He’s frowning. “What’s got you so resistant to this?”

“I--”

“If I didn’t _know_ that you definitely consider me a friend, I’d think that you hate spending time with me.” There’s an uncomfortable pause where that’s so untrue, Prompto doesn’t know what to say, and the other man straightens and tenses. “You _don’t_ hate spending time with me, right?”

He’s quick to deny the accusation with, “No! No, of course not!” but doesn’t know how to continue from there. He doesn’t have the words to explain that he _wants_ , like he wanted Gladio in bed with him when he was hurting, like he wanted to trace the feathers of the tattoo with his tongue, but moving from _wanting_ to _doing_ \--and being allowed to do so--seems an impossible chasm to cross.

Sex, he gets. He does. It doesn’t mean much, and with a guy like Gladio, it certainly can’t mean much.

“Then help me out here, Prom. We have great sex, we like each other, so why isn’t the next step dating?”

“You’re the one who wanted to be casual!” Prompto bursts out.

Next door, his neighbor turns on some music that creates a rhythmic, pulsating noise that is not enough to drown out the sound of silence in the wake of his words.

“No, I wasn’t.”

That’s not what Prompto was expecting. “What?”

“I didn’t want it to be casual,” Gladio says. “You said that we were casual, and I agreed, because you had already decided.”

“Wait—wait, did you _not_ want to be casual?” He recalls that conversation. Prompto _had_ been the one to say they were casual, but that was because he never would have considered that Gladio, with his muscles, body, and noble lineage, would actually want to date him.

Gladio shrugs. “I would have suggested a date if you had asked me,” but Prompto didn’t. How could he have guessed? “But I was pretty happy with sex. For a while. I wanted to bring it up, but you never seemed to want to hang out aside from running or with the others. You said you only wanted casual clearly, so I didn’t want to push it if that’s all you wanted, but after--after we thought you died, I didn’t want to…” Gladio’s eyes narrow as he trails off. “Hold up. Why did you assume I wanted to be casual in the first place?”

Prompto’s words are stuck behind his teeth.

“Did I _do_ something that made you think—or say something that made you think I wouldn’t want to date?”

“No, I just thought that you wouldn’t—” _want to date me_ , but that is exactly the wrong thing to say.

Gladio is a shark that’s just scented blood. “I wouldn’t _what_? If not date, then…” He trails off, eyes widening in shock.

Gladiolus Amicitia, the scion of the noble Amicitia line, and Shield of the Crown Prince Noctis Lucis Caelum, whose primary duty in life is to protect the life of Prince Noctis by any means necessary. Some people forget that for all that Gladio is expected to lay his life down for the royal family, his family are not just bodyguards. They are friends and advisors to the Kings they guard, and their line comprises of warriors, scholars, and tacticians. Gladio is as much a royal advisor as Ignis, and he has received some of the best education Lucis can offer. He is meant to lead their forces to war, and win.

And he is anything but stupid.

“You thought,” comes out slow and deep, and it makes Prompto want to curl up out of sight. Out of existence. “That I wouldn’t want to date _you_. Others, but not you, specifically.”

Gladio’s expression is terrifying, and Prompto looks away.

“So you thought—and _please_ correct me if I’m wrong--you thought I would only want to use you for sex.”

That’s not _true_. Prompto doesn’t think that of Gladio. He doesn’t think badly of _him_ at all. Words to crush that mistaken belief tear their way out of his throat. “Why would someone like you want to date someone like me?”

He still can’t look at Gladio, but the other man’s words are more mild than before. “‘Someone like you?’”

His hands are shaking. Prompto wills them to stop, and when that doesn’t work, he tries to move them to his lap, but Gladio grabs one and holds it before he can. He glances up, and Gladio’s expression is patient. More patient than Prompto deserves. “Yeah. You can have anyone, and I’m not… I’m not…” He wants Gladio to interrupt him, save him from saying the rest of this sentence, but Gladio holds his hand and waits. “I’m nobody special.” A squeeze, and Prompto tries to shake it off. “I’m a Niff refugee. The only thing going for me is that I somehow made friends with the Prince because we’re both gaming nerds, and I happen to know how to shoot a gun. There’s lots of people like that, who aren’t…” Escaped experiments. Desperate for affection, but can never quite trust the affection is genuine. Who wouldn’t have caused a royal scandal just because of his features and nationality. “Who are better.”

The chair squeals as Gladio stands up. He’s around the table and leaning over Prompto. Kissing him.

Prompto wants to voice his confusion. He wants to ask Gladio what of what he just said warrants being kissed like he’d die without it. He makes a noise that’s swallowed by the kiss, and his own chair screeches in protest as Gladio kicks it and by extension Prompto out from under the table, lifts him up, and—

—hugs him. He stops kissing him to hug him. He’s holding him up, Prompto’s feet barely touching the floor, and hugging him tight.

“You’re definitely good enough for me,” Gladio says. Prompto grunts a question and protest. “We’ll work on it.”

Sometimes, thoughts come out of Prompto’s mouth before he can really consider if he should say them or not. “What, you’re going to fuck self-esteem into me?”

Gladio laughs, loud and full, and Prompto feels the sound through his entire body. It’s nice. “We can definitely try that. Maybe I should compliment you more while I’m fucking you? Oh, I can _feel_ you blush! I wonder how long I could keep that going?”

Prompto squirms, pushing away from Gladio’s chest. He is not lingering on his pecs, he’s definitely not. That would just be counterproductive, but they’re such _amazing_ pecs. “You’ve already fucked my ass today.”

Gladio walks them into the living room. “Leaves me with plenty of other options.”

When they’re blissed out on the couch together after Gladio whispered complimentary filth non-stop about Prompto, his body, his lips, his neck, his mouth, and his hands, Gladio says smugly, “Yup. Still red.”


	6. Ignis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompto and Ignis finally have that overdue talk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm still debating if I want this fic as part of a series or to have it long and altogether, and I'm leaning towards series (in which case I will mark it as a series when posting the last chapter so people can subscribe to that if they want to). If I do that, there will be 8 chapters most likely to this fic. if I don't do that, then who even knows
> 
> anyway enjoy this chapter, which is exactly one scene

Gladio stays over for a while, reading one of his novels while Prompto cleans up a bit and plays some video games. For a start to a relationship, Prompto thinks it goes fairly well. Gladio even reads some of the dirty bits of his smutty romance serial out loud with some goading on Prompto’s part, which is hilarious.

When he does leave late afternoon, Prompto goes over to Ignis’ apartment and then texts him.

\-- _hey man you at home?_

Ignis replies almost immediately.

\-- _Yes, I am._

\-- _great i’m right outside_

Prompto waits, and not even ten seconds later Ignis opens the door.

Ignis stares at him. He’s in a tank top and and nice sweatpants, which means that Ignis actually is staying home for the requisite rest days. “That was unnecessarily unnerving.”

“I wanted to talk to you. Since, you know.”

“Indeed. Well, come in. Would you like anything?”

“Nah, man, I’m good. Just felt like we should talk.”

“Have you showered?”

“What? Oh, yeah, I have. I’m sorry about that earlier, it wasn’t a good time--”

“Prompto.”

“We weren’t in the middle of anything--I mean, we were, but not like, well, you know, we were talking, I just hadn’t showered yet--”

“ _Prompto_.”

“What?”

“If you have showered,” Ignis says. “I would like to give you a proper hug now.”

“Oh. Oh! Yeah, all clean and shiny.”

They hug. It’s not as desperate as when they were on the road, or as intense as that morning, but it’s reassuring nonetheless.

“So we’re done with our mission, now,” Prompto says, sitting down on Ignis’ couch as he gets them some coffee anyway.

“We are.”

“How’s Ardyn?”

“Frustrating,” Ignis replies. “He refuses to answer questions about his origins, and though he has the support of myself, Gladio, and His Highness, it makes the Council wary about trusting him. And when I left this morning--”

“This _morning_?” Prompto should have stayed with them and helped. Now that it’s pointed out, Iggy looks tired now. Wait, wasn’t he still in uniform when he was at Prompto’s this morning? “Wait, did you come straight to my place after leaving the Citadel?”

Ignis sighs and sits down with his Ebony while handing Prompto a mug of coffee that’s mostly cream and sugar. “I did. I did not realize I would be interrupting.”

That isn’t the point. Prompto rubs his arm uncomfortably. “We don’t need to do this now. I can come back after you’ve slept.” But if Ignis had really wanted to see him so bad that he came over to Prompto’s before even going home…

Ignis shrugs and takes a sip. “I have not been able to go to sleep, so now is as good as time as any.”

“Okay,” Prompto says slowly. He’s missing something, but he doesn’t know what, so he asks the question Iggy refused to answer what feels like forever ago. “How are you doing?”

“I’m fine.”

“Iggy.”

“I am,” Ignis says more forcefully. Prompto raises his eyebrows. “I really am. You don’t need to worry about me.”

“Ignis,” Prompto says. “I will call Noct and get him here to make you spill about what’s making you so weird right now.”

“I’m _fine_.”

“You came over to my apartment to hug me before you even came back to your apartment. You couldn’t talk about how you were feeling on the mission because it was too much for you to deal with. And now you’re just--you’re just telling me that suddenly everything is fine? Iggy,” Prompto implores. “What’s going on?”

Ignis sighs, takes his glasses off and cleans them. Prompto noticed he tends to do that when tired. “It’s nothing you need to worry about,” Iggy says.

“Okay,” Prompto says, fiddling with his pants. It’s a little cruel, but, “How were you feeling after you all thought I died?”

Iggy flinches. “By the Astrals, Prompto.”

And this isn’t fair, but, “Were you fine then, too?”

Now, Ignis slouches. “That’s unkind, Prompto.”

“Is this because of me and Gladio?” Prompto asks. Gladio said Ignis wouldn’t have a problem with them. Could Gladio be wrong? They know each other so well, both having been practically raised together to be royal advisors. But something had changed with Ignis sometime between this morning and now, and Prompto’s chest tightens at the thought of Ignis _hating_ him.

The response isn’t instant. Ignis says, “No, of course not,” but Prompto knows.

“Fuck you,” Prompto says, curling in on himself. He tries to put venom behind the words, to be angry, but all he manages is to not sound devastated. He doesn’t want to be cursing at Ignis in the first place. “It’s none of your business who I fuck.”

Gratifyingly, Ignis eyes are wide and he’s shaking his head. “No, that’s not what I meant.” For a moment, Prompto thinks about when he said that himself with Gladio, and believes him. “Please, Prompto. Sit down. I don’t have a problem with you and Gladio, I swear.”

For want to do something with his hands that isn’t so obviously anxious, he picks up his mug without taking a sip and holds it. It warms his hands. He stares at his reflection, and wonders where this conversation veered so far from what he expected.

“I’m happy for you and Gladio,” he says genuinely, though he doesn’t sound happy. “I’m glad the two of you have each other. I consider both of you dear friends, and I want the best for each of you.”

“Okay,” Prompto says slowly. “Thank you.”

“Forgive me for not… for my struggles to express myself clearly. As the strategist, I should better compartmentalize, but these past few weeks have been a bit… much.”

Prompto laughs weakly. “You’re telling me, buddy.” He gets a slight smile from Ignis in return, and it starts to feel like they might be alright. “Um, I’m sorry I said ‘fuck you.’”

“It’s quite alright. I understand.” He smiled wryly. “Rejection, even if only perceived, provokes strong emotional responses.” What a nice way to say that Ignis almost managed to reduce Prompto to tears.

“Yeah. That.” Prompto takes a sip of his mug. “So, really. Are you okay?”

Ignis sighs. “I will be. Your death--or, what we thought was your death--was a blow to all of us. If we had had to continue without you--” Ignis silences himself for a second, then continues, “--like we would have in any other circumstances, I believe that our performance would have been crippled. I can’t so far as to project what the outcome of our mission would have been, but it’s clear that without you, our morale would suffer and did, in fact, suffer.”

“You’re still not talking about yourself.”

“No, I suppose I’m not. I’m finding it… difficult.” Prompto gives him a minute, and is rewarded with, “You’re a valued member of our team. Your skills in combat are formidable, yes, but what you do for the morale is irreplaceable. And that should have been accounted for when I devised our tactics. Your strength in battle is sniping our enemies from afar, but that leaves you vulnerable. I should have planned better. It’s my fault.” Ignis took in a shuddering breath, “It’s my fault what happened to you. It was my fault you almost died, and I had nothing to do with the fact that you didn’t.”

“Iggy…”

“If you had died, it would be on me. When we believed you had, it was on me.”

“Iggy, it’s okay.” Of course. Gladio had been dealing with the guilt of making them move on, and had felt guilty just because of that. Of course Ignis was struggling with his own guilt.

And like Gladio had, Ignis says, “It’s not okay.”

“It is. You guys did what you had to do--”

“It’s not okay, Prompto,” Ignis says firmly. “But it will be.”

Prompto leans his elbows on his knees and matches Ignis’ solemn gaze. “I’m an acceptable loss, Ignis,” and Ignis’ face contorts with anger.

“You are not,” he snaps.

“I am. You’re the strategist, you know that we’re all expendable.” Noct isn’t supposed to be, but in a sense, he also is. Otherwise he wouldn’t be sent out at all. If Noct had died, though… His Majesty would be heirless, true, but… the royal line would have to continue. It’s not like King Regis would be without volunteers for surrogates.

As far as Prompto knows, the Council has advised the King since Noct was a child (at least since the time of his injury, but maybe even before) to have other children. The magic of the royal line could not be lost; Prompto wouldn’t be surprised if potential surrogates have already been chosen in the event of Noctis’ death.

“No person is expendable,” Ignis says forcefully, visibly upset and angry. “It is true that military strategies require risk and sacrifice, and those strategies must account for individuals who require special defenses.” Meaning Noctis. “But assigning each individual a level of expendability does nothing but reduce living human beings to tools. _All_ of our people have value. When sacrifices must be made, they are not made lightly. When you died in--”

Ignis stops and corrects himself. When he continued, the words come out about as easily as pulling teeth, “If we are examining the thankfully _hypothetical_ scenario of your death at the cave…” He stops again. Ignis leans forward, face intent, and Prompto makes himself maintain eye contact. “Prompto. It’s clear that you understand your role as a Crownsguard, and eventual Kingsglaive. You know all too well that there are times where you would be expected to give your life. Where your sacrifice would have been _required_. My strategies are meant to plan for when sacrifice becomes necessary, and to prevent unnecessary ones. But this? Your demise on a local request to rout a cave of monsters was not a necessary sacrifice. You are not expendable. I miscalculated--gravely. The fault for almost losing you lies entirely with me.”

Prompto was speechless.  

Whatever Ignis sees on his face prompts him to add, “No, don’t feel guilty. It wasn’t your fault.”

“Iggy…”

“It’s alright, Prompto.”

“I don’t blame you, though,” Prompto insists. “There’s no guarantee that even with better planning that I wouldn’t have been grabbed, or that I wouldn’t have moved that far back on my own anyway.”

“There isn’t,” Ignis admits. “But unless I do all I can, the risk persists.”

“But will it ever be enough?”

“I must try.”

The emotion is a plain struggle on Ignis’ face, but so is his certitude, and Prompto lowers his eyes down to his almost finished coffee. The caffeine isn’t helping the bone-deep exhaustion that’s settling within him. He’s been put through a wringer, and it has yet to stop. And somehow, even when he’s expecting emotional conversations, their intensity still blindsides him.

The silence is fortunately not uneasy as they both mull over and absorb the conversation. Ignis schools his expression back to professionalism, but he too seems exhausted. _Did he say he hadn’t slept yet?_ he thinks with no small amount of concern.

Before he can continue that line of thought to asking Iggy exactly how long he’s been awake for, Ignis queries, “Did you take any photos that are relevant to our mission?”

After a second passes to the question to register, Prompto says, “Oh, yeah! I took pictures in the laboratory, in the… um, in the rooms we found.”

Ignis leans forward. “Of what, specifically?”

“I tried to get… I tried to get pictures of their faces when they were intact enough for maybe someone to recognize them. They didn’t have any dog tags left on them. I took pictures of the equipment, but they didn’t leave any documents lying around.”

“Good,” Ignis stands up. “Good. Would you like some more coffee? Or food?”

More coffee is a bad idea, with what he’s had sitting poorly in his stomach. “Maybe a little bit of food?”

“Very well.”

Prompto pulls out his camera and his phone while he waits for Ignis. Remembering how grisly the scene at the laboratory was, he doesn’t want to go through the photos yet on his own. So he checks his phone instead.

He has nine texts. Surprised, he sees that seven of them are from Noctis, and two are from Gladio.

\-- _hey man are you home?_

_\--i let myself in_

_\--i guess you’re not_

_\--where are you?_

_\--you’re out of eggs_

_\--are you going to be home tonight?_

_\--dude you have like no food_

The two from Gladio are images. Pictures of a couple paragraphs from his current book, it looks like. He opens them up long enough to catch, _he plowed into her, his seed taking root in her fertile field_ , before closing out the messages.

“Are you alright, Prompto? You’re flushed.” Ignis was back with cheese and crackers. _Nice_ cheese and crackers. Thank the Astrals for Ignis’ fancy taste.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” Opening his phone back up, he responds to Noctis, _i’m at iggy’s dude_ and _that’s what you get for going to my place for food_

To Gladio, he writes, _dude_

And he means to put his phone away, but Gladio immediately replies.

\-- _you like my books don’t pretend you don’t ;)_

_\--are you going to be home tonight?_

Ignis waits patiently, so Prompto puts his phone down without answering.

“Okay, so here are the photos I have from the lab…” They are just as horrible and gruesome as they were in person, and the stark lighting from the flash adds an additional dimension to the horror. Ignis examines each one before sliding onto the next.

“Send all of those to me through the secure server. We’ll need to examine these to see if we can identify these soldiers. And if there’s anything meaningful to glean from this laboratory, we’ll find it,” Ignis states. He proceeds to look through the camera, but the next one is of Ardyn, snarling and standing across the camp from them. “Oh.”

“How is Ardyn doing?” Prompto suddenly asks. “We never finished that.”

“Oh, yes. He was making himself comfortable at the medical wing. For someone who’s been isolated from civilization for who knows how long, he certainly is an adept medic.” There’s a couple more of Ardyn in repose, some of Iggy and Noctis. Prompto remembers too late the next photo. Ignis’ long, lithe fingers slide on the screen, and it’s Prompto and Gladio in bed.

Prompto in the image looks just as bad as he had imagined at the time. He looks thin, with deep shadows under his eyes despite the sheer amount of sleep he had been getting. Prompto wonders how much food he had eaten in the cave. He remembers the peach, but had Ardyn given him food when he was less aware? He must have, if it had been days. Prompto is thin in the photo but not so much as to think he hadn’t been fed somewhat, _and_ he had healed a bit while down there. Ardyn must have gotten some food inside of him.

Gladio makes for a much healthier sight, but his face is drawn and pallid with exhaustion and stress, which Prompto hadn’t noticed in the moment. He’s on his side, facing Prompto, and he’s looking at the camera through a slitted eye.

They’re both at least clearly wearing shirts, and nothing about the scene indicates what happened--any of it, _thank Shiva_ \--just before Prompto took the photo, but he shifts uncomfortably and wants to grab the camera back. It’s unbearably intimate to share with someone else, and it rings particularly inappropriate for _Ignis_ to see it.

After a moment, Ignis slides past it without comment. The next one should be from before the cave, but instead it’s a ridiculous, obviously accidental, selfie of Ardyn in the cave. Unwillingly, Prompto bursts out laughing through the twisted, anxious thoughts that had just been nearly strangling him.

“Is that the cave you were in?” Ignis asks, grinning a bit. “Where Ardyn nursed you back to health? When was this taken?”

“Iggy, my man, this is what happens when someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing with a camera accidentally takes a pic of themselves. Does Ardyn know how to use modern stuff?”

“Not especially, but he seems adept at learning quickly.”

What Ignis said about Ardyn catches up with him. “Wait, so Ardyn is helping out in the hospital?”

“Indeed. Bullied his way there. Quite a talent for someone who can’t speak.”

“No one’s going to kill him, right?”

Ignis shuts off and hands his camera back to him. “No, Prompto. He’s fine.”

“When can I go see him?”

Ignis pauses. His next words are chosen carefully. “There was some concern among the Council for Ardyn’s attachment to you. We do not want to… destabilize him, but we also want to ensure that he presents no harm to you.”

“He’s not a threat to me.”

“I do not think he is, either, Prompto,” Iggy adds gently. “But to soothe the concerns of the Council, please wait until your mandatory rest week is over.”

That is fair. Sensible. He doesn’t know what he’d do if he could see Ardyn anyway. Feeling drained, he murmurs, “Yeah, okay.”

He’s so tired. Prompto wants to go home, but he’s not sure how to exit gracefully. “Is there… was there anything else?”

“No, Prompto.” And because Prompto isn’t that subtle and Iggy’s too perceptive for his own good, he says, “Perhaps we should retire for the day? I can call someone to drive you home if you’d like.”

 _Thank Shiva_ , Prompto thinks, ready to leave. “Nah, I’ll be good walking. Thanks, man.”

As Prompto departs, he looks at Iggy’s tired face, and says, “Make sure you get sleep, too, man.”

“I will. Don’t worry about me.” So he says, but a niggling concern persists even after Prompto departs. He tells himself that he’s just drained from the past several weeks, and that Iggy’s fine.

After all, why wouldn’t he be?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you love iggy raise your hand


	7. The Glaives

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter might take a little longer to post. It should be the last one for this story arc, but I'm traveling next week and also I have my thesis to work on. It's mostly written though. 
> 
> I have Thoughts and Opinions on the Kingglaives by the way.

Fantasies of a dark, quiet apartment where he can pass out quietly are shattered when Prompto finds both Noctis _and_ Gladio chilling out there with pizza.

“What the hell, guys,” Prompto says to the sight of Noctis playing his video games and--was he beating Prompto’s high score? Not cool--Gladio watching and eating a slice.

“You never said when you were going to be home,” Noct says, not looking from the game.

“I didn’t realize Noctis would be here,” Gladio says.

“I didn’t realize you were coming over,” Prompto says.

Noctis pauses the screen to eye them both suspiciously. “You two weren’t planning on having sex, were you? ‘Cause if you are, give me a heads up so I can go.”

“No,” Prompto says, before Gladio could answer. If he has to guess, Gladio’s here to enjoy the less sexual aspects of their newfound relationship status, but he’s too tired to deal with teasing. “I want to pass out. No, not literally,” when they both perk up in alarm. “Sleep. I want to sleep for an entire day.”

“Eat some pizza first,” Gladio suggests.

“I ate at Iggy’s.”

“Ah. Alright. Want some company?”

“Should I not be here?” Noct asks, but he doesn’t even pause the game this time.

“We’re not talking about sex, Prince Charmless, calm down.”

“You guys do what you want. I’m going to bed.” It’s still early evening, but Prompto wants to shut out the world. He leaves Gladio and Noctis bickering in the living room.

He does what he needs to so he won’t feel gross in the morning, and then Prompto crawls into bed and falls asleep.

…

He wakes up with a blanket he hadn’t gone to sleep with covering him and Noctis, who’s drooling on his second pillow.

A little surprising, but it really shouldn’t be. Noctis often stays over, and just as often joins him in bed. Prompto specifically chose a mattress that allows them both to sleep comfortably, especially with Noctis’ old injury. And Prompto’s not sure how he would feel waking up next to Gladio so soon after they’ve decided to try out dating.

It’s still early, so he turns over and goes back to sleep.

...

Prompto wakes suddenly and unpleasant as he rolls off the bed in response to what turns out to be Noct’s hand smacking into his face. Noctis, still asleep, sprawls across the entire bed, and after some grumbling, Prompto snaps a picture. Light streams into the room onto Noct’s face, which makes for a striking shot.

His stomach tells him that he’s been asleep for way too long, and that it desperately needs food. A check of the clock reveals it’s been fourteen hours, so he leaves Noct to the bed and gets up.

To his surprise, Gladio is on the couch, which he also takes a couple shots of. Gladio’s a big guy, but he fits on the couch. Technically. With his head resting on one of the arm rests, his propped up feet dangling off the side. Which is fine, if he’s reading on the couch, but sometime during his sleep, one of his legs fell off the couch. It’s ridiculous, and he makes the perfectly normal sized couch look miniature.

The camera’s clicking evidently wakes Gladio--or at least, Gladio becomes aware that Prompto’s standing in the living room taking pictures of him while he sleeps--and his eyes snap open.

“Ah,” Prompto says awkwardly. He knows that part of Gladio’s training--for his _job_ \--is to be able to wake up ready for a fight instantly. And the camera’s shutter is loud in the silence. “Sorry about that.”

“No worries,” Gladio says, stretching. “It’s late.”

Prompto shuffles closer to Gladio, wanting but not sure exactly what. When he’s next to the couch, Gladio pulls him down on top of him and kisses him. It takes a second for Prompto to relax into the kiss, but he does, and he lets himself get comfortable.

“I didn’t expect you to stay,” Prompto says when they break apart. Gladio holds onto him loosely, but Prompto isn’t trying to go anywhere.

“Did you want me to go?” Gladio asks, his fingers lightly massaging Prompto’s lower back.

“No?” Prompto tries out, and it feels true, so he repeats, “No. Just surprised, is all.”

Gladio shrugs. “I didn’t want to push it. And you know Noctis. He decided he was going to have the bed with you.”

Prompto licks his lips. “Yeah.” The Shield _knows_ about Noctis’ old knee injury, and is responsible for training the Prince to accommodate for that lingering disability, but Noctis shies away from talking about it even with them. Prompto doesn’t want to draw any attention to it if he doesn’t have to.

Prompto rests his head down onto Gladio’s chest for a little bit. In a few minutes though, Prompto’s stomach reminds him why he got up in the first place.

“There should be left over pizza,” Gladio says, amused and helpful. Prompto grunts, wills himself up, and fails.

“You’re too comfortable,” Prompto complains, tracing Gladio’s collarbone with his finger. “Stop that.”

“Oh, you need help?” which is all the warning Prompto gets as the world spins around and suddenly he’s over Gladio’s shoulder. Prompto squawks in protest, but he finds himself put down into a kitchen chair and is allowed to watch Gladio as he gets out the pizza.

Soon, the smell of food draws Noctis out of Prompto’s bedroom. “You drooled all over my pillow, dude,” Prompto says in lieu of _good morning_.

“My drool makes it better.”

Prompto scrunches up his face in disgust. “Gross.”

Gladio sighs. Noctis sits down at the table like a zombie, and intones, “Your pillow’s blessed by the royal family.”

“Don’t be a little shit, it’s gross and so are you.”

“You called out Gladio’s name in your sleep last night,” Noctis says smugly. Prompto chokes, blushing and stuttering in denial. “Several times. Sounded like a good dream. You said it like--”

“Nope! No!” Prompto lunges across the table to cover up Noct’s mouth with his hands with Gladio’s uproarious laughter in the background. “I demote you from best friend ranking!” Prompto yells as Noct grabs his hands to pull them off, and in their struggle, they end up on the floor with Prompto holding Noctis down so he can’t imitate how he said Gladio’s name during a sex dream. “I’m going to find a new best friend who won’t betray me like this! Like Iggy! Iggy’s gonna be my best friend now!”

Gladio puts the pizza in the oven to heat up. “What, I’m not an option?”

“Like you wouldn’t tease me for the rest of my life about this,” Prompto shoots at him.

“Oh, I’m still going to tease you for this. That’s not even a question.”

Noctis takes the distraction to try and buck him off, but Prompto is used to his tricky ways, and pins him down. “I can hold my own grappling with Gladio, Noct, you think you’re gonna win this?”

Noctis muffles something against his hand, and while it’s muffled and unclear, he wags his eyebrows. Prompto can guess. “That’s not what I meant!”

Gladio comes over, sits down in Noct’s abandoned chair, and pats his shoulder. “Oh, you can hold your own in that kind of grappling too.”

Noctis makes a noise between a laugh and a choke. Prompto flushes and stammers _again_ , and Noct springs out of his grip.

“No, do not,” Prompto says immediately, while Gladio says, “Tell me what he sounded like.”

And horrifically, Noctis smirks, opens his mouth, and in a poor imitation of Prompto’s voice, he moans, “ _Gladio_ …”

Prompto screeches a war cry and chases Noctis around his apartment. Gladio laughs at them for a while, and then yells at them, “Hurry up or I’m going to eat all the pizza!”

And well. Pizza always permits a momentary truce.

“You’re both such shits,” Prompto tells them both, when they’re seated at the table.

“I am happy for both of you,” Noctis says, earnestly around a mouthful of pizza. “And it’s great. It really is. It’s like, instant teasing material.”

“I’m going to whoop your ass,” Prompto says, but he’s smiling.

...

The week of requisite rest passes much the same way, and uneventfully. Prompto spends time with his friends and new proclaimed boyfriend, but also his with father and neighbors. When he goes to the Niff District alone, he is easily drawn into familiar grooves among the people in the market, recognized as one of them. Occasionally, Noctis will accompany him, and the sounds of the neighborhood change. The usually loud ambient Gralean grows quiet, and no one even attempts to speak to Prompto in their mother tongue, only in Lucian.

Prompto does not don his Crownsguard uniform while visiting home, but Noctis is a much more effective reminder to his community to whom he has pledged his life.

It is an uncomfortable place in life, and has been, since he befriended the Prince. It is the elderly owner of the spice shop, who would stop Prompto and Noctis, give them a sample of some new Tenebraean spices she got in, while telling them both how much she supported Lucis and how proud of Prompto she was. It is Niflheim boys, just a couple years younger than he, who cease what they were doing whenever Prompto turned to a corner they were hanging out on.

It is Prompto securing as many of his city watch routes in the Niff District as he can, instead of someone else. Someone else, like the Guards who intimidated him and his entire neighborhood when he was younger. There are much fewer problems with the Guards and the residents in the Niff District than there were a decade ago, because even if Noctis wasn’t officially supposed to ever visit Prompto at his home before he was of age (and the Council could no longer stop him), he and Ignis paid close attention to the Guards’ reports. And between the Prince and the Royal Advisor, questionable interactions listed in reports were followed up on and dealt with.

It’s part of the reason why Prompto moved out closer to the Citadel. His apartment’s location is far more convenient than the nightmarish trek across part of the city, yes, but Prompto couldn’t stand belonging and not belonging in the same breath.

But he misses his home, sometimes. It’s good to come back. He spends much of the week there.

And finally, at the end of his requisite week of rest, Prompto is allowed to see Ardyn.

If he’s honest with himself, he’s a little nervous as he walks the glorious hallways of the Citadel to the medical wing. Nervous for so many reasons, for how much Prompto owes Ardyn, how those debts can never be fully repaid, for Ignis’ perturbing mention of Ardyn’s attachment to him. What is he to do with the affection of a former human turned daemon, and has been living as a daemon for who knows how long?

...

Ardyn is busy.

Prompto waits in the corner of the medical wing, while Ardyn attends to an injured Glaive. A couple other Glaives linger while he does so, Captain Titus Drautos and Glaive Luche. Ardyn ignores them.

Prompto should probably leave and come back later, but he wants to see this.

Ardyn’s pale hands, claw-free, deftly stitch up an injury. When he entered the room, Prompto couldn’t see it, but the flesh mends after it’s been stitched together.

 _Some kind of enchantment_ , Prompto thinks, _too bad Noct can’t do that_. They make do with potions, and they work great, but that was a smooth healing.

The Captain and the Glaive edge closer to their injured soldier, and examine the wound critically. “That is a cleaner and simpler process,” Captain Drautos admits. “I will consider allowing you to teach the Kingsglaives on how.”

“Crownsguard Argentum,” Glaive Luche says suddenly, Propmto startling minutely at the attention. “What are you doing here?”

“I am here to check in on Ardyn, sir,” Prompto answers.

Perplexingly, Drautos and Luche both fix him with lingering stares. “You were the one that initially encountered Ardyn, are you not?”

‘Encountered,’ heh. “Yes, sir.”

“Ardyn has suggested that we dedicate a team solely for healing,” Drautos says. “Would you say that Ardyn is a reliably competent medic?”

He doesn’t need to think about his response to that one, but it is an odd thing to ask with Ardyn right there. “Yes, sir.”

Drautos stares at him then nods. “Very well. Ardyn, give a report on what healing spells you know of, and we’ll work on it.”

Ardyn nods.

The Glaives leave, the injured one still unconscious, and it’s Prompto and Ardyn.

Prompto rubs the back of his neck uncertainly. He doesn’t have a plan. “Sorry for bothering you while you’re busy.”

Ardyn waves it off, coming forward to place a hand on his shoulder and push him away and out of the medical center.

To Prompto’s mild surprised, Ardyn doesn’t hide in the halls. He gets some looks, but no one stops them.

Ardyn still looks like a daemon, if one that’s taken pains to pass as well as a human. The dark coloring around his eyes and mouth remains, even if it looks as if he had had a feast of daemon flesh.

Prompto wonders what Ardyn looked like when he was human. Now, in scrubs, the imposition of his daemonic traits are awkward on the features that are distinctly human.

Ardyn guides him to what Prompto assumes are his quarters. “Hey, this is a pretty sweet room,” Prompto tells him. There are entire shelves dedicated to medicine like in the cave, but these have been greatly updated. There are cut plants drying on the desk. While there is a bed, the covers have been pulled off entirely and left on the floor. _A bed would be_ really _soft after a cave floor_ , Prompto realizes. _Even with all the furs he had._ Ardyn and he sit at a rather nice writing table.

Nervous for no particular reason, he asks, “So, uh. How are you settling in?”

Ardyn nods while grabbing his notebook, but doesn’t set about writing anything. Prompto asks then, “Are they treating you alright?”

Brows furrowed a bit, Ardyn nods again. He writes something, and shows to Prompto, _Are you alright?_

“Yeah, I’m fine! Great, it’s been a nice week off. I, uh, just wanted to check in on you. Which I now have.” Fidgeting, he tries again, “So, you’re--you like being here?”

To Prompto’s distress, Ardyn scrawls, _Not particularly_. A heavy stone of guilt gathered in his gut. He had dragged Ardyn out from what he was used to, from the home he had made for himself despite all the shit he had gone through, to a place he didn’t even want to be.

Ardyn starts to move the pen to the paper, and Prompto bursts out, “I’m so sorry. You’ve done so much for me, but you--you don’t need to keep watching out for me. You don’t have to stay. No one’s going to make you.” That’s not true. “I’ll help you leave.”

 _Stop_ , Ardyn writes. _This has nothing to do with you. I want to be here, and I also don’t for reasons entirely separate from these circumstances._

“I--really?”

 _Really. I won’t lie and say it’s not difficult, but it was time to leave that cave._ He hesitates, an odd expression on his ruined face but adds, _I can help more people here._

Prompto breathes out. “Okay. Good. I’m glad to hear it. I’m glad you’re here, but I didn’t want you to be here against your will. Or to just take care of me.”

 _I’m not_ , Ardyn’s smiling, a little. Prompto can barely seem his sharp teeth.

“So what have you been helping with? Magical healing for the Glaives?”

 _And information about daemons. I’m very familiar with their weakness and strengths, which will be a boon to your soldiers and hunters_.

“Tell me about them? And the healing, too, anything I could learn?”

His eyebrows raise, and smiles pleasantly, even with teeth white and sharp. _Of course you could learn._

Ardyn’s enthusiastic. It’s clearly been quite some time since he had someone so eager to talk about his knowledge. Interrogation with Glaives and the Council do not really count as social interaction, after all.

Prompto listens, and practices, and hopes that maybe, with Ardyn’s help, they’ll all hold out a little longer.

…

When he finally leaves Ardyn, hours later, Prompto finds himself drawn to the Kingsglaive’s training grounds due to shouts and yells that sound suspiciously like Gladio. He salutes Drautos on his way out, and quickly finds his way to the grounds to see Gladio sparring rather intensely against Glaive Nyx Ulric.

Prompto whoops, “Go Gladio! Kick his ass!” but even at his arrival he can see that Nyx is winning. It’s a bare bones brawling match, and with his size, training, and legacy, Gladio should be the clear winner, but Nyx is solidly knocking him around.

They’re both having so much fun though. Gladio’s got some blood on his face, but he’s grinning like a maniac. Nyx’s in a better state, and more smirking than grinning, but it’s a pleasant energy.

After some feints, tackles, some hard punches, Nyx has Gladio pinned and is announced the winner by Glaive Crowe Altius. Prompto claps and cheers, and makes his way over to show his support.

Nyx helps Gladio up, and they bro hug. Prompto comes up and smacks Gladio on the shoulder. “Good show, man! You, too,” Prompto says to Nyx.

“You wanna go a round, Argentum?” Nyx suggests, waggling his eyebrows. Prompto’s face heats up a bit, which he knows is exactly what Nyx wanted. He smirks, the Glaives in the audience chortle, and Prompto tries to desperately pretend he doesn’t have a type.

“Nah, I wouldn’t want to beat you after Gladio’s softened you up. You’d just say that it doesn’t count, and we’d have to go _again_.”

“Do it, Prompto,” Gladio encourages. “If you beat him now, you can wipe that smirk off his face.”

“Then it’s on!” Nyx yells. “To the starting points,” and like the show off he is, warps to his point across the yard.

“Dude,” Prompto hisses at Gladio. “I have to _beat him_ to wipe that smirk off his face.”

“Just fight him like you fight me,” Gladio says in an undertone. “You’ll do better than you think you will.”

He was so earnest, Prompto sighs and gets into place. “You owe me for this.”

Gladio smirks filthily, and leans in. “Anything you want, later this evening.” Then he’s gone to the audience, and Prompto tries to focus on beating up Nyx as much as possible, and not having sex with Gladio.

Prompto loses, but not as easily as he thought he would have. Nyx’ fighting style is very similar to Gladio’s, and Prompto wins _their_ matches about half the time.

The main differences show themselves is in the capacities their fighting is meant for. Nyx’ Glaive training is meant for assassinations, and brutal, all-out battles outside the city’s walls. Gladio and Prompto are meant to be Shields. While Gladio, and the Amicitia line in general, are _the_ Shields of the Kings, one person is insufficient for the safety of the King. It’s a subtle signifier of title and function; Gladio is the King’s Shield, while Prompto and Ignis are Shields. And someday, Iris will also be one of Noctis’ Shields.

Like with Gladio, Nyx helps Prompto up afterwards and gives him the companionable bro hug. “Good fight! I wouldn’t be surprised if you are able to beat me sooner rather than later.” Prompto knows Nyx gets a lot of shit for being Galahadian and not Insomnian, despite and especially because his hero status. But when he was smiling like this, Prompto has no idea what’s wrong with people. Prompto flushes, and Nyx adds, “Want to join the rest of us for a drink? My treat.”

That sounds an awful like a date, and Prompto realizes that he never heard anything about which way Nyx swings. Which, ordinarily, Prompto would be super into finding out if that’s what Nyx means, except that he’s actually in a relationship now. Prompto’s not entirely convinced they’ll soldier on with the relationship, that Gladio won’t give up on him, but he’s not interested in sabotaging it completely.

“Uh, I can’t tonight, but thanks,” he says. He almost adds, “Maybe another night?” but that might be a little misleading.

Still, Nyx nods easily, claps him on the shoulder, and goes back to the other Glaives. Gladio comes up to Prompto and wraps an arm around his shoulder. “Wasn’t I right? Said you’d do well.”

Gladio’s arm is hot, a little sweaty, and a comforting pressure on his shoulders. “I didn’t win, though.” How long can they stay like this before it clearly is less than friendly to outsiders? Prompto’s never had to worry about this before. Prompto’s super into friendly touches all the time, and open with affection, but he’s never had to worry about other people taking it the wrong way, because there was nothing to take the wrong way. And taking it the wrong way would be absurd, given that Prompto is, well, Prompto.

People--and Ignis--might frown at Prompto’s affectionate touches with Noctis, but Prompto’s maleness means that he’s never considered a threat or even a possibility to Noctis dutifully marrying for politics, as he will likely have to.

Also, Noctis just isn’t interested. Not in Prompto, or… anyone, really. Definitely not a fact that anyone needs to know, but one that makes their affection very relaxed.

Fucking Gladio and being friends with Gladio is very different from being in a relationship with Gladio. Before, Prompto didn’t feel as if there was anything to hide, because just fucking didn’t mean anything. Now, though… how long could they do this before someone finds out? What about his dad? The media?

Fleetingly, as he and Gladio make their way out of the Citadel to his apartment, he thinks about the continuation of the Amicitia’s noble line. He nearly snorts at the thought of being around long enough for _that_ to be a concern. 


	8. The Talk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gladio and Prompto hash out what they want from each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This work is now part of a series! Go subscribe to is if you want updates for the next part!

If Prompto is honest, and he is never, ever, ever, ever going to be about this ever, he didn’t expect anything to change when he and Gladio started dating. At most, he thought that Gladio might spend the night occasionally. Prompto thought he might have to get used to sharing his bed with someone a few nights of the month. He expected more sex, probably, or at least less hurried sex. He might have thought the dating thing would fizzle out.

But, no. Dating Gladio is entirely different than just having casual sex with Gladio.

Gladio fully embraces their new relationship status, which is another way to say that he spends much of his time slumming it at Prompto’s. At the beginning, it’s disconcerting. Prompto’s not _used_ to sharing his living space so much. He and Noctis used to spend all the time outside of school in each other’s pockets, but it’s been awhile since then. Prompto’s role as Crownsguard to the Prince of Lucis guarantees they spend a significant amount of time together still, but Noctis can’t exactly just crash at his place whenever.

Having Gladio around is different entirely from having Noctis around, even if he discounts the touching, kissing, and sex. Prompto startled so bad he rolled out the bed the first time he woke up to Gladio singing with a tone-deaf baritone in the shower. Loud, fast, pop songs about love and breaking up that play on the radio non-stop. He reads during his downtime usually, and they spend hours curled up on the couch in silence while Gladio reads and Prompto plays a game.

And, if he encounters a particularly funny or filthy piece of text, Gladio reads it out loud. Sometimes Prompto’s video game gets interrupted because of that.

He also likes to text them to Prompto throughout the day. Which is a lot of fun, particularly when he’s fishing with Noctis, and he reads them out loud to make a reason as to why he’s so bad at fishing. And Noctis makes for a supportive, if somewhat bewildered, audience with both the readings and with Prompto’s relationship.

“‘ _Princess Diem,’ Glaive Nox said huskily. ‘You are as radiant as the sun itself.’ His hands squeezed her buoyant bosom, and she gasps in overwhelming lust. ‘Take me,’ she cries, a river of liquid desire leaking from between her legs._ ”

“What does that even mean?” Noctis asks, turning away from his fishing, which is an accomplishment.

“Women get wet when they’re horny, dude.”

Noctis’ face scrunches up a little. It’s honestly a little bit adorable. “Really?”

“Yup,” Prompto says, popping the ‘p.’ He continues, “ _Nox attaches himself to her lips, their tongues battling for dominance. His large pleasure member_ —”

“ _What_?”

“Pleasure member. It means ‘dick.’”

“I thought Gladio liked this book.”

“He does. People like things for a lot of reasons. This is great because it’s hilarious.”

“I don’t know why they had to name the princess ‘Diem.’ They’re not even trying to be subtle,” Noctis sulks.

“If it makes it better,” Prompto says cheekily, with no intent of making it better. “Nox is definitely based on Nyx.”

Noctis chokes. “What—but I—what?”

“I think people read this, imagining him with a girl version of you.”

“Ifrit’s _dick_.”

“Or at least, they want to imagine Nyx. I think Nyx is the appeal, not you.” It certainly is for Gladio. The fan forums Gladio is on were pretty heavily dominated by women, from what Prompto could gather the few times he read Gladio’s screen while they were cuddling.

“Thank Shiva for small mercies.” Prompto thinks about reading more, but Noctis adds, “Wait, what do _you_ read it for?”

Also for Nyx, and to have way too in depth conversations about the series with Gladio. “To torment you,” which is also true.

“Fucking knew it,” Noctis mutters, warping five feet to his right to push a startled Prompto into the water. His fishing rod is abandoned when Prompto roughly yanks on Noctis’ ankle to pull him under too.

…

Aside from his snark, Noctis treats neither Prompto nor Gladio differently after the revelation that they’re together. Iggy never mentions it, when Prompto sees him, but he seems pretty normal.

Neither one mentions how ridiculous it is that they’re even in a relationship. Noctis has an excuse, at least. Sex has never been that interesting to him, and as the sole Prince of Lucis, his marriage has always been expected to be for political gain. (If they all survive that long.) To an extent, Noctis doesn’t have to worry about sexual relationships. They’re a non-issue.

Prompto’s a little surprised that Ignis didn’t have anything further to say on the subject of their relationship. Because surely, two of the Prince’s Crownsguard fucking each other and dating each other is a major risk for scandal.

When Prompto tentatively tries to ask Ignis for his advice, he gently tells Prompto, “That is something you and Gladio should discuss, not I.”

“But you would know, right?”

“Gladio’s circumstances are different than mine, as are the demands,” Iggy says, not unkindly. “Your circumstances are also unique.”

“I’m a commoner,” Prompto interjects, not adding, _and a niff, least of all._

“You are a Crownsguard who will likely be awarded your own noble house, and you are, significantly, the companion of the prince. Nepotism goes a long way. You are not a partner that can be neatly swept under the rug.” Wait, his own noble house? Prompto missed that part of the discussion. He makes a mental note to ask Noctis _what the fuck_. “What Gladio intends to do hinges on what the two of you decide, for which you must talk to _him_ about this. And talk to him about it honestly, especially if it concerns you so.”

Prompto sighs. “Yeah. Thanks, Ig.”

…

About a month after Prompto loses to Nyx, he thinks about his conversation with Iggy as he waits on the bed for Gladio to be done using the bathroom. He tries to think of a delicate, subtle way to bring up this conversation. So Prompto says, “You know, you’ve practically moved in,” which is not either of those things, but at least this time, it feels like a good way to start.

Gladio spits out some toothpaste. “Oh. Yeah. Guess so.” Prompto doesn’t hear him continue brushing, so he waits through a tense moment of silence. “Is that okay? I wasn’t really thinking about it.”

The weirdest thing is that it is okay. Prompto likes having Gladio there, even though he takes up more than half the bed, singes badly in the shower and when he’s cooking, and has an obsessive love for all kinds of romance novels. “It’s okay. I just wasn’t expecting for this to go that way.”

Gladio finishes up, and comes to bed. Prompto turns to face him, and a hand smooths down his side. “What way were you expecting?” A knee nudges Prompto’s shin, so he lifts his leg long enough for Gladio’s to slip between.

“I guess I didn’t think we’d be… so serious, so fast. Or that we’d spend so much more time together.” Iggy said that that he should be honest, and Prompto has noticed that he and Gladio do a lot better together once Prompto actually says what’s concerning him. Tracing the edges of the feathers on Gladio’s arm, and a little thrilled that he can so casually, he says, “And, uh. It’s a little early to worry about this, but because of, well, all of that, I’ve been worried.”

Prompto can hear the grin when Gladio says, “So what is it you’re worried about?”

“Where do you want this,” he begins, gesturing between their chests, “to go? Because all of this seems a little… serious.”

“That’s because it is serious, Prompto. I thought I was being pretty clear about that.”

“Right, yeah, I’ve, uh. Picked up on that,” Prompto says, ears burning a bit. He stares fixedly at Gladio’s chest. “But. Okay, but how serious?”

Fingers trace up his arm, shoulder, to his chin and tilts his head up to meets Gladio’s eyes. “I’m afraid I’m not sure what you mean.”

Specifics, then. “What are you telling your dad when you’re here, and not there?”

Gladio doesn’t flinch, or even seem surprised. “I tell him that I’m at your apartment,” and it’s Prompto who flinches instead.

“ _What_?”

“Did you expect me to lie?”

“No—I mean, kind of—are you saying that your father _knows_ about us?”

“Well,” Gladio muses, “I haven’t ever said, ‘hey, dad, I’m going over to Prompto’s because I like to have sex and mushy relationship stuff with him,’ but I think he knows, yeah.”

Prompto leans away, and Gladio catches his hand and presses a kiss to the back of it. “It’s okay. Calm down.”

“‘Calm down’? You just said that your dad— _the Shield of the King_ —knows we’re fucking!”

“Yeah, but you don’t need to worry about that. I can handle my dad.”

Gladio’s completely serious, and he’s still holding Prompto’s hand close to his face. Tired and in disbelief, he lets himself drop back down to his spot. “So he’s just—he’s just fine with this?”

“Well, I don’t know about _fine_. When this gets out, there’ll definitely be a scandal. Not that you’re not used to those,” and he’s teasing, but that shit sucked balls during the fact, so Prompto squirms a bit, “and there’s other options to continue the Amicitia line.”

Prompto would swear on Noct’s life that the gears in his brain squealed to stop. “What?”

His thumb massages Prompto’s palm a bit. “Which part?”

“All of it. ‘ _When_ this gets out’?” He can’t bring himself to ask about continuing the Amicitia line.

Eyebrows rise disbelievingly, Gladio says, “Well, yeah, it’s going to get out eventually. And I don’t like the idea of keeping it a secret forever.”

“I need some water,” Prompto says, pulls himself away from Gladio, and gets up.

He goes to kitchen for a glass, fills it, drinks about half of it, and fills it up again. Walks back to the bedroom, where Gladio is waiting for him, propped up on an elbow. He looks concerned.

“What’s wrong?” Gladio asks, more worried now than he has been the entire night. “Did you want to keep our relationship a secret?”

“I wasn’t really thinking that far in the future,” Prompto says slowly, standing in the doorway awkwardly, not quite sure where to rest his gaze at. He settles for the corner. “I was still getting used to being in a relationship at all. And my line of thinking was more _if_ we make it to the point where we want to tell people and what to do then, rather than _when_.”

“Ah,” Gladio says.

“I think we should talk about that,” Prompto says.

“Yeah,” Gladio says.

“So, that’s, um. You’re thinking that we’re going to be together for a while?”

Without even looking at Gladio, he can still feel the intensity of his stare. “Right. And you’re thinking we won’t make it to even telling anyone.”

“Right.”

“Alright,” Gladio says. Then, “Come back to bed. Watching you stand on the edge of your own room is painful.” He pulls down the covers, and Prompto shuffles back in between them.

“So,” Prompto begins and stops, not knowing where to go from there.

“So,” Gladio echoes. Just a few minutes before, they had been languishing intertwined with each other. Now, Gladio’s body is a tense line on the bed, and whether he means to or not, becomes utterly unapproachable. Prompto can’t imagine touching him right now. Perhaps getting back into bed was a bad idea.

He’s still a little surprised at the anger of Gladio’s voice. “You don’t have to be dating me if you don’t want to. If you just want to break up with me, don’t drag it on. Just do it.”

“I don’t want to break up with you!” Prompto denies immediately.

Gladio, scowling and glaring, sits up from the bed, leaving Prompto to feel vulnerable and small, so he follows suit.

“If you didn’t want to date, you should have said so _earlier_ , like _before we started dating_.”

“I _do_ want to date you!”

“Well, it doesn’t fucking seem like that, does it?” Gladio yells, and yeah, Prompto regrets getting back into bed. “You’ve been so insecure this entire time, maybe I shouldn’t have bothered if you think we’re not going to last!” He regrets it a lot.

“Well, it’s fucking weird to already think about forever!” Prompto yells back.

“We’ve already known each other for _years_ —”

“We’ve only been dating for _a month_! It’s too soon!”

“ _BUT I ALREADY KNOW_!” Gladio bellows. The anger on his face contorts suddenly to surprise and fear, and Prompto gapes.

“I mean—shit,” Gladio says. “I didn’t mean to say that.”

“Yeah,” Prompto says. They both sit quietly on the bed for a moment. “Really?”

Gladio sighs, and says, a little bitingly, “Even if I say yes, would you believe me?”

 _Of course I would_ , he thinks, and stops. Because it’s not true. “Probably not,” he admits. “I would need time.”

Gladio snorts, voice still with a mean edge to it. “Time? How much time do you need?”

Prompto ignores the tone, and answers truthfully, “I don’t know. Until it becomes normal, I guess.”

They quiet again, sitting side by side, just a little more relaxed. “What do you mean, become normal?” Gladio asks.

How does Prompto describe his certainty before they hooked up that no one would want him? That, when they were fucking, he was sure it was for convenience, not genuine interest in an awkward failure of a _niff_ immigrant. He’s too anxious, too scrawny, and too _worthless_. There’s a part of him that can never shake the idea that he’ll never be good enough. Not for Insomnia.

When Gladio said he wanted to date him the first time, it shifted Prompto’s view of the world, and of the possibilities laid out for him in life. He had to think about, not just because of his traumatic, near-death experience. Readjusting what he could have had been hard.

“I mean when… when I get used to the idea that this is something I can have,” Prompto says, looking away from Gladio as he persists despite the knots twisting themselves up in his chest. “I was just becoming okay with our relationship. That took a month. Like, the idea of you and me just being a thing. All the time.”

Gladio says, “So you need time to get used to changes in our relationship, is what you’re saying.”

Relieved, Prompto says, “Right.”

A thoughtful pause, and Gladio asks, “And you _do_ want to date me?”

Prompto rubs his nose. “Yeah, I do. I really do. It’s hard for me. But I do.”

Quite unlike Gladio, he asks, “So you don’t want to break up?”

But Prompto thinks he knows why Gladio is asking. “No, I don’t. I don’t want us to break up, and I’m not going to like— _sabotage_ us or anything, I just… wasn’t convinced it could last.”

“Because it wasn’t normal for you yet,” Gladio echoes. “Does it feel normal now?”

Prompto rubs a hand through his hair. “A little?” He brought this up because Gladio was around all of the time and he was getting used to it, didn’t he? “I’m not quite at the point where I want to talk about meeting the parents or anything, but I’m getting used to being in a relationship with you?”

“But you’re not sure?”

“It’s not really all at once.”

“Okay,” Gladio says. “Yeah, okay. I can work with that.” He leans back down onto the bed, and tugs lightly on Prompto’s arm. Prompto obligingly lies down, tucking into Gladio’s chest and wrapped in his arms.

A large hand rubs circles on Prompto’s back, and Gladio asks, voice rumbling through his chest, “What can I do to help?”

“What?” Prompto says, feeling warm and safe and exhausted after the conversation.

“What can I do to help make this normal for you?” Gladio repeats, not ceasing his hand’s movements.

“Oh,” Prompto says into Gladio’s chest. “Reminders? Calling me out when I get all weird and anxious, too, I guess. Being direct about what you want from me, I suppose.”

Gladio hums. “Alright. I can do that.”

A minute or so passes, and Prompto wants to sleep, but Gladio’s not quite relaxed yet. He doesn’t know what else it could be, but he closes his eyes and waits. Finally, he asks, “Would it help make it feel… more of a permanent thing… if we went out on public dates?”

Prompto opens his eyes, and stares at the chest before him. Reluctantly, he pulls away a little bit, Gladio’s arms still loosely around him. “Don’t we already do that?”

Prompto feels Gladio shrug. “We go out for runs, get food together, train together, but nothing clearly romantic. And… would it help normalize this for you if I, I don’t know, held your hand or kissed you in front of people?”

Prompto thinks of Gladio kissing him in their normal spaces, usually in front of other Crownsguards or Kingsglaives. Or nobles, such as Gladio’s _dad_ or the _King_. “I think I would probably have a heart attack if you kissed me suddenly in front of people.”

Gladio pinches his ass, and as Prompto yelps, “It wouldn’t be that bad.”

“It might be depending on who saw it, or hears about it, like your _dad_.”

“My dad already knows.”

Prompto sighs, and bumps his forehead against Gladio’s solid chest. “That’s still a lot for me.”

“But what I’m saying is that you don’t need to worry about my dad finding out, because he already knows. We can be a couple in public without that to worry about at least.”

Prompto glances up, but it’s just his neck. He thinks about licking it to surprise him, so he does. Gladio’s breath hitches, and Prompto pushes until he’s on top of Gladio. He licks and nips a little, and accuses, “You just want to be able to kiss me in public.

“Yup. Not denying that,” he says as his hands grip Prompto’s ass and squeezes. “Also want to hold your hand in public, I said that too. And I think it would help.”

Gladio’s ridiculously romantic, but instead of replying, Prompto leans back down and begins tracing the hawk tattoo with his tongue. The chest beneath his tongue moves a bit more heavily, but Gladio continues a little brokenly, “I do think it would help. It might feel less strange if we’re open about our relationship. So it’s not just confined to when we’re in private. Maybe start with just our friends first, so we don’t have to worry about the press for a while?”

That… is a good idea, Prompto has to admit. He pulls back a little but continues tracing the feathers of the hawk lightly with his finger. “Yeah,” Prompto says. “We should do that. It would feel less like…”

“Like…?” Gladio prompts, fingers still kneading into Prompto’ ass.

“I worry that you’ll lose interest,” Prompto cagily confesses, and Gladio stills. “Like one day you’ll wake up and realize you can do a lot better than me.”

Gladio’s hands move up along his sides, up his back, to stop on his neck and head and pull him up to meet his kiss. The pressure on his head is steady and firm; Gladio holds him in place for quite the languid but passionate kiss.

“So it’s decided then,” Gladio murmurs, when he give them a little space. “I’ll kiss you,” he pulls Prompto’s face back down to presses a quick peck to his cheek, “and hold your hand in public,” another peck, to the bridge of his nose, “so you don’t have to worry that I’ll just up and leave one day.” Without waiting for a reply, he kisses him heatedly on the mouth.

“Cornball,” Prompto complains, as Gladio begins to kiss what appears to be every individual freckle on his face. His eyes close, concentrating on the warm kisses on his face that slowly lose their heat and become more languid. Prompto feels heavier, relaxing more fully onto Gladio, and jerks suddenly when he realizes he’s falling asleep as Gladio’s making out with his face.

“What is it?”

“Just tired,” Prompto mumbles, scooting down a bit on Gladio to rest his head on his shoulder.

“Alright,” Gladio says, his hand coming up to Prompto’s head to slowly stroke his hair. At the sensation, Prompto breathes at a great sigh, the stress of the day and conversation flowing out. He should probably move off of Gladio, but his other arm is tucked around Prompto’s waist and is gently rubbing circles into his hip. There’s no need to move.

Warm, relaxed, and happy, Prompto falls asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's it for this part! I'm making this into a series, so if you want email updates about the second part, go subscribe to it! There should be two, maaaaaybe three more parts to this story, depending on how I decide to handle a thing. 
> 
> The next part will include: plot! politics! secret missions! niflheim! intrigue! meeting the parents! worldbuilding!

**Author's Note:**

> join me in chocobro hell on my tumblr, seladorie.tumblr.com
> 
> If you search my "Take Heart" or my "ffxv" tags you can find whatever worldbuilding explanations that I have for this universe.


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